


Burn as brightly

by andeemae



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, madge in thirteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:46:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 103,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4603872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in District Thirteen isn't easy, and life outside it isn't any better at the moment. As a war rages on above ground Madge Undersee has to learn her new place in the world and just who she is if she isn't the mayor's daughter. Is she going to be part of the fight for a new Panem, or fade into the background like she always has?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Thanks so much to Fortunefaded2012 for helping me start this and keeping the timeline believable, and Nursekelly0429 for coming in and giving me feedback here at my very sluggish end. You're both saints for putting up with me.

Madge wakes with a start, heart pounding against her ribcage and her breathing short. Another nightmare.

She squints up into the dark sky. There are no stars tonight. The smoke from the fires, the ash remains from District Twelve, is too thick. Even the moon isn't able to cut through it.

She's filthy. Soot is caked on her skin and clothes, in her hair, irritating her eyes and making them as bloodshot as Mr. Abernathy's. She's completely miserable.

Her lungs burn and she closes her eyes again, tries to get some rest before morning, but it's no use. Her mind is awake, unwanted, terror filled dreams waiting to begin again.

Madge props herself up on her elbows for a second and glances over at her mother. She's every bit as dirty as Madge, her skin an ashy gray and her normally pale hair is greasy and matted, thick with filth, not a fly away strand in sight. Unlike her daughter, though, all the smoke and dirt, the heat and death, hasn't hindered her ability to sleep. With a gentle smile, she snoozes on, oblivious to her daughter's inability to get so much as a few minutes of sleep.

Forcing herself up the rest of the way, Madge crosses her legs and peers out into the dark.

All around her the survivors of District Twelve, less than a thousand unlucky souls, are restlessly sleeping, or like her, simply waiting for the morning and the next leg of their uncertain journey.

She should've gone with Birdy and the group from District Ten.

Here, among the people her father had died to save, she's no more welcome than she ever was. They still look at her as a privileged child, a useless princess even though she's not received any special treatment, as if there were any.

If they only knew how much her family had done for them. Telling them isn't an option though, it wouldn't do any good, and they'd never believe her.

She takes a deep breath, inhaling the thick air, the dust from the forest and the heat from the still burning fires of Twelve.

Her lungs sting and she starts coughing. Hoarse, dry coughs, rack her body as she tries to catch her breath, but the more she tries the more it becomes futile and the more she panics.

Something rubs down her back, warm and coarse, catching on the worn fabric of her shirt, gives her a gentle pat.

"It's okay," she hears Gale's voice, deep and soothing, tell her as his hand continues to rub on her back.

She focuses on his voice, the feel of his hand on her back, taking even breaths, for several minutes before she evens she does something damp and cool presses into her hand.

Looking over, she finds a wet rag, held loosely in Gale's hand, offered out to her.

"Thanks," she mumbles, taking it and wiping her face, enjoying the feeling of having slightly less dirt on her.

"Drink this." He hands her a canteen, his canteen from the mines. There's water in it, she can see it shimmering what tiny amount of light her eyes can detect in the dark of the night.

Water has been scarce since the fires started, since the bombing. The ash has made most of the lake Gale had led them to undrinkable. Gale and a group of men had scouted the surroundings and found safe water, but it wasn't much and it was a long walk for such a large group. They had to ration what little they had out carefully. It was bad enough he'd apparently wasted some on a rag for her, she couldn't take more of it from him or his siblings.

"That's yours," she tells him, pushing it back into his chest. "I'm fine now."

She can't see him, not really, just the outline of his body and the glint of his eyes, stormy gray in the sea of black, but she knows he's scowling.

He pushes the water back at her. "Drink it or I make you."

"Gale-"

Before she knows what he's doing, he puts the mouth of the canteen to her lips and tips it up, his free hand catching her face and holding it still until she takes a mouthful.

"There," he grumbles. "Was that so hard?"

Even though he can't see her, she shoots him a dirty look and rubs her jaw.

For several minutes they sit in silence, staring out into the heavy darkness, before Gale cuts the quiet with another sigh.

"Can't sleep?" He finally says.

Madge shrugs.

He seems to consider her lack of answer, he can't see her after all, as an invitation to continue talking. Probably something he learned to do with Katniss, Madge thinks, a little bitterly.

"Want to talk?"

Madge wants to tell him how her dreams are filled with images of her father, burning up, being electrocuted for his efforts to save his District, but her words stick in her throat. She isn't ready to talk about her dad, about any of it.

He knows Birdy had wanted Madge and her mother to go to Ten with them, that she'd considered it her duty to keep an eye on Madge. He doesn't know it was part of Birdy's promise to the Mayor, the last request of a doomed man, that she would make sure Madge and her mother were safe.

"You'll be safer with us," Birdy had told her, once she and her friends, the fake Peacekeepers, found the survivors huddled around Gale's lake outside the downed fences of the District. "We can protect you."

"I can protect her," Gale had snapped, stepping between the pair of girls. "She's from Twelve. She can stay with Twelve."

It was the closest thing to an endorsement of endearment that Madge had ever heard and it made her stomach do an odd sort of flip flop.

Birdy had ignored him, stepping around him and giving Madge a small smile. "Madgie, you don't want to go with them. You don't want to end up there."

"Where?" Gale had stepped between them again, leaned into Birdy's face and glared, demanding an answer.

"Was I talking to you, Dorothy?" She tried to push him out of the way, but Gale refused to budge.

"You don't have any hold over me anymore," he all but growled. "You can't hurt me. I don't have to listen to you."

Birdy laughed, it sent a chill up Madge's back. "I can always hurt you. Don't you ever forget that."

Her friend, an older man with wiry gray hair, had pointed a long gun at Gale after that, gestured for him to back off. Despite looking like he would've liked a good fight, something he could take his frustration and fear out on, Gale had backed down, leaving Madge and Birdy to their talk.

"I want to stay," Madge had finally told her, once Gale was out of earshot. "I-they'll need me. If Thirteen is half as dangerous as you think, they'll need me."

Madge was the only person left with any skill navigating politics. Most of the Town had been killed, locked themselves in their cellars when the electricity had gone down on orders from Thread. The final act of a cruel man.

"They don't deserve you," Birdy had smiled sadly. "I understand why you want to go, and you're a better woman than me for it, but they don't deserve it."

She'd backed off after that, but made the promise that she'd be in contact soon.

"Why don't you give us a few guns," Gale had asked through gritted teeth.

"I'll give you the bullets if you'd like," Birdy had answered, pointing her gun at Gale's gut. She'd thrown her head back and laughed at the horrified looks she'd received. "Oh, don't worry, I wouldn't waste a bullet on what I could do with my knife. And to answer your question, Dorothy, as far as the Capitol knows all of you are dead, we're about to go into a warzone, we need the guns, you don't. Besides, we only have one for each of us."

"Why don't you take us with you?" Gale started in on her again.

"Who died and made you supreme leader of this merry band of morons?" She'd covered her mouth at that, giving Madge and apologetic look. "Sorry."

"Gale, they can't travel with this many people," Madge had pointed out.

"And…" Birdy had sighed, thought about her words for a minute, and then shrugged. "Someone is coming for y'all. They want you there. Say they need you." She made a face of extreme distaste. "Once they meet you they'll regret that."

"They'll be here in two, maybe three days," Birdy had whispered as she'd given Madge a hug goodbye. Avoiding Gale's continued questions about just who was coming for them. "Keep your eyes open, Madgie. They're snakes in the grass, I promise you that."

She'd left shortly after that, leaving the survivors of Twelve with a small store of dried meat and a few containers of water.

Madge had told Gale about Thirteen shortly after, about the plan for them to come pick up the survivors and Birdy's distrust.

"If the witch doesn't like them I consider that a glowing endorsement," he'd told her, glaring off into the soot covered trees, the direction Birdy and her friends had vanished.

"She's right though, Gale," Madge twisted the tattered edges of her skirt in her hands, anxiety almost overwhelming her. He needed to understand. "They've got all this power, but they've been hiding, why? They say it's to avoid a nuclear war, wiping everyone out, but surely they've come up with technology before now that can avoid that. Why did they let the Districts, who don't have much power, suffer and do all the work while they watch from the shadows? It's just strange."

Gale had nodded, rubbed his jaw and considered her words, but in the end he'd shrugged and placed his hand on Madge's, stilling them.

"It's strange, I'll agree with that." A small smile, flitted on his face. "But someone once told me that even if I didn't trust that witch I should use her expertise to my advantage, let her do her job. That's what I plan on doing with Thirteen, if they ever show up. I won't trust them, but I'll use them, their knowledge and resources for my goals."

Madge hadn't been able to keep from smiling after that. It was nice to know he occasionally listened to her.

His fledgling smile had died shortly after that. "Madge, what happened with your dad?"

She'd known it was coming, his asking about the one thing she hadn't wanted to talk about, maybe ever. It was unavoidable.

Madge and her mother had come running through the Seam, yelling for him, giving him a warning about impending doom right before the bombings had started. They'd stayed with Gale as the fence had been pulled down, run with him and his family through the woods. Just the two of them. Her father's absence was blaring.

He'd caught her crying, finally letting the fear and anxiety bubble out, just after they'd gotten to the lake, right before the group from Ten had found them, but all she'd managed to rasp out at that time was the word 'dad'.

"He's dead, Gale," she'd answered, her voice flat, leaden. She's certain he'd already guessed as much though.

There was no reason to give him the details. He had more important things to deal with. Much more important things than the hole in Madge's heart left by her father's death.

Gale had simply nodded, given her a small, awkward, pat on the back, and motioned for her to keep walking, catch up with her mother and get back to the camp. When they'd gotten back to the other survivors Madge and her mother had been met with hostility.

"What're they doing here?"

"Capitol only get your dad out, princess?"

"Why are we wasting resources on them?"

Gale had shut the complainers down, letting them know that without Madge's warning they might all be dead.

"She saved us," he'd told them, conveniently leaving out Birdy and the others' contributions. "The Mayor is dead, not evacuated. Now leave her alone. We have more important things to do than moan about who made it out and who didn't."

As the days rolled on, food and water became priorities, Gale had only spoken to her at night, once the day's duties were done.

"You and your mom stay with the kids," he'd warned her. Despite his assurances and warnings, Madge still heard people grumbling about her and her mother's presence. "My mom will take care of things."

"Just watch these first few times," Mrs. Hawthorne told Madge and her mother as she tried to teach them how to clean one of the squirrels Gale had brought back. She was trying to give them a useful skill while she was stuck babysitting.

It was too much though, too gory for Madge, and she ended up losing what little was in her stomach in a bush by the edge of camp.

"Can't handle a little manual labor," a boy, younger than her but much older than Rory, sneered. He eyed her darkly. "Maybe I can teach you something else to pass the time."

"Madge!" Mrs. Hawthorne called out.

The boy had turned, watched as Gale's mother leveled him in a sharp look before huffing and stalking off.

Madge doesn't know how she'll ever be able to repay her or Gale for keeping her and her mother from being drowned in the debris filled lake.

Despite his taking charge of them, keeping them with his family, Madge still can't bring herself to tell him all the things leading them to this miserable point. Her father's death is a raw wound that she's covered with ash and is trying to ignore. She has her mother, who is doing surprisingly well despite the stress of the past few days, to take care of, and she can't let herself process it all quite yet.

Breaking down will come later, but not now.

"It gets easier," Gale finally says, his voice just a whisper. "It never goes away, but it gets better."

Madge nods again, feels tears begin prickling at the backs of her eyes, and sniffles.

When the silence settles over them again, she feels his hand again, this time on her head.

Gently, Gale strokes her tangled hair, brushes his fingers through it. Madge feels her eyes flutter shut at the sensation.

"Lay back down," he tells her.

She starts to argue, but his fingers through her hair have an almost hypnotic effect on her, making her eyelids heavy and her head foggy. Without a word of protest, Madge nods, shifts a bit in her spot, and settles back down next to her mother.

Gale scoots over, props himself up against the tree his family had taken up residence under, then, just as gently as before, begins stroking Madge's hair.

Brushing it off her neck, his calloused fingers graze the skin and send a shiver up her spine. He twirls it between his fingers and gently combs it.

Madge feels herself start to drift to sleep finally, her mind relaxed, focused on the feeling of Gale's fingers against her scalp, hoping terrified dreams of her father's death don't wake her again.

#######

She wakes to screaming, terrified stampeding and crying all around her.

Madge shoots up to find the sky still a gloomy gray and the air still thick as everyone scrambles around them.

Her mother is squinting into the distance, at the source of everyone's distress, and Madge quickly rubs her eyes, the dust and sleep from them before trying to figure out what's gotten everyone so upset. That's when she spots them.

Three large hovercrafts, dull and heavy, not the sort of thing anyone would expect to move so effortlessly in the sky, are quickly and noisily approaching.

The Hawthornes aren't anywhere to be seen, and Madge quickly assumes they're with Gale, already down trying to scour the surroundings for anything edible. They're always leaving Madge and her mother cocooned in their safe little nest and it annoys her to no end, though considering the current situation she has better things to do than mull over the fact that even Posy is considered more capable of scavenging than Madge.

"Mom! Up!" Madge grabs her mother's hand and pulls her easily from the ground, out of the way of the frantic feet of the survivors.

She starts to run, follow the frantic crowd out into the wood, but then she glances back at the hovercraft.

It isn't sleek and silent like the ones she's seen before, when she's been at her father's side to receive especially important guest from the Capitol,these are loud, large, hard to miss. Whoever is in these hovercrafts want to be seen, they aren't sneaking up on anyone.

It's Thirteen.

Stopping dead in her tracks, Madge turns and stares up disbelieving as the airships slow on approach, open their lower decks and send a group of people down to the ground.

"Madge!" Gale appears, in a dead run, from the trees to her left.

Just as one of the people, a soldier by the look of him, reaches Madge, so does Gale. He grabs her by the wrist and pulls her from the soldiers reach, holding her against his chest and shielding her mother.

"Who are you?" He demands, glaring at the man, looking as if he'll beat him within an inch of his life if he gives the wrong answer despite the fact that Gale is dressed in ragged clothes, his skin is burned, and one of his arms is injured.

The soldier flips the visor covering his eyes up, revealing that he's actually a she, and gives Gale a quick once over. "Gale Hawthorne?"

Despite the look of confusion that flickers over his features, Gale keeps his hold on Madge as he nods.

The woman gives him a tight smile. "We were hoping you'd survived."

Gale doesn't so much as crack a smile at that, but Madge feels a little 'hmph' vibrate through his chest.

"We've come to retrieve you," the woman says, squinting out at the forest where survivors have stopped running and are watching the scene curiously. "All of you."

"How do we know you're who you say you are?" Gale eyes her suspiciously. "How do we know you aren't some trick by the Capitol?"

"Why would we be standing here talking to you if we were the Capitol?"

"Maybe you're taking us somewhere to use as an example," Gale offers, pulling Madge more tightly to him. She can feel his hot breath coming in quick puffs on her skin. "Prove who you are."

The woman laughs. "She said you'd be a tough customer. Told us just to tase you and drag you behind the hovercraft, it would be easier."

Gale's grip loosens. "Who?"

"Soldier Alameda, she sent us a message before communications went down, told us you were still alive. Unfortunately, she's notorious for her inventive interpretations of the truth, so we weren't sure what we'd find." She grimaces. "She's…not exactly our favorite person to deal with."

From behind her Gale shifts, lets the hand wrapped around Madge's middle loosen a little, though he doesn't drop it.

"Mine either."

Madge glances up and sees a small smile grow on his face. "You sure you have enough room on there for everyone?"

#######

It's cold on the hovercraft. Despite being crammed in, crushed against one another, the metal steals all the warmth hundreds of human bodies should've produced.

Madge pulls her mother close as they settle in next to the Hawthornes against one of the frigid walls of the hovercraft, mimicking Mrs. Everdeen who is doing the same for Prim.

They've already been warned the flight will be several hours long.

"The added weight slows us down," one of the soldiers had explained.

It didn't matter much to anyone how long it took, the fact that they were being saved from the smoky woods was all anyone seemed to care about. Still, it wouldn't hurt if their rescuers passed out a few blankets.

With Vick on her right and her mother curled into her left, leaching whatever little bit of body heat she could from them combined with the sway of the hovercraft as it floated through the sky, Madge feels her eyes grow heavy. She isn't comfortable, anything but, the cold and the worry over what really awaits them in Thirteen has her stomach rolling unpleasantly, but her body is exhausted and she finds herself drifting off despite wanting to stay awake until Gale comes back. He's off talking to the leader of the group, the woman that they'd met earlier, and Madge is curious what she'd wanted to tell him.

Her tired eyes win out though, and she soon finds herself slumped over, finally giving in to sleep.

#######

When Madge wakes she's considerably warmer. Something has wrapped itself around her, enveloping her in a comfortable heat, and she doesn't even open her eyes, just nuzzles deeper into it.

Her bed always was warm.

Her eyes fly open when she remembers she has no bed, no room, no house, and whatever lovely warmth is around her isn't her comforter.

Whatever it is, it's alive. She feels it moving, slowly and rhythmically, breathing against her. They smell of earth and smoke, several days' worth of tramping through the woods, but it isn't completely unpleasant. Turning her head, her nose bumps into a worn and dirty miner's shirt, a patch bearing the name 'Gale'.

Madge's heart stutters in her chest. He must've come back and positioned himself between Madge and Vick. She isn't sure why, but she finds herself not caring too much.

Tilting her head up, she peers at him through her stringy bangs. His head is lolled over, resting against Vick's hair, and his mouth is slightly open as he snores softly. The stubble on his cheeks is slowly approaching a full blown beard, thick and dark as it is and there's a layer of grime on his skin, making it darker than usual.

He has his arms wrapped, one around Vick, and the other Madge, keeping both of them settled firmly against him. Madge can feel the pads of his fingers, calloused and rough, pressed into the sliver of exposed skin on her back, between her blouse and her skirt, and she shivers, rousing him.

Bleary eyed, Gale straightens up, blinks several times before looking over at Madge. "We there?"

Madge shakes her head and casts her eyes down to her legs, where she finds her mother sleeping contentedly. She can feel a blush flooding her face and doesn't want him to see it.

"Hn," Gale grunts, shifting a little and popping his back loudly. "Going back to sleep then."

He settles back, arms still around his brother and Madge, as though it's the most natural thing in the world, and closes his eyes.

Heart still beating furiously, Madge seizes the moment, letting herself settle back against Gale's side.

As her eyes drift shut again, sleep comes all too easy with Gale's warmth around her, she feels Gale's fingers brushing softly against the skin on her back.

Opening her eyes, she peaks up at him.

His eyes are still closed, halfway to sleep, and his face gives no indication that he realizes what he's doing. It's seemingly completely an absent gesture, and Madge considers telling him to stop, but her voice doesn't seem to want to work.

Instead, she closes her eyes and slips into a restful sleep.

#######

"Madge," Gale's hot breath on her ear, his soft voice, wakes Madge from her slumber.

He nudges her, softly pushes her up from where she'd slumped over more onto him, and grimaces.

"Oh, Gale, your arm." Madge turns and helps him gingerly free himself from between Madge and the wall of the hovercraft. He'd injured it during the fire, and despite Mrs. Everdeen's efforts, it's still tender.

"Probably needs a sling," Mrs. Everdeen had sighed on that first day in the woods. "Not that we'd be able to keep it on you."

Gale had grinned at that. There was too much to do, for him to do, for him to let something as trivial as an injury slow him down with a sling.

Now though, his days of activity are catching up with him, and Madge hopes District Thirteen has a medical ward.

"You shouldn't've done that," Madge tells him as he rubs his shoulder and makes a face.

"You were shivering," Gale points out. "You were freezing."

Madge almost rolls her eyes and tells him she wasn't even close to freezing, but stops herself. A considerable part of her doesn't want to shy him of trying to warm her again in the future, when his shoulder is better.

Instead she just clicks her tongue and shakes her head. "That was very chivalrous of you."

Gale looks up with a grin and is about to say something, when someone beats him to it.

"It was," Madge hears her mother sigh as she sits up, smiling airily at Gale.

Face flushing, Madge mumbles a 'sorry about her' to Gale and stares at her lap.

She expects him to turn from her, back to his family who are all now awake and chattering about the flight, but he doesn't. For several long seconds, as Madge stares at her filthy skirt, Gale simply watches her. Then as she thinks he's giving her up, something warm inches under the back hem of her shirt and pinches her.

She nearly jumps out of her skin, much to Gale's amusement.

"Ticklish?"

Madge shoots him a dark look and pushes his hand from under her shirt. He just continues to smirk.

As she's about to threaten to pinch him back, something she's positive she isn't bold enough to actually do, her stomach seems to move, shift inside her. Her eyes widen as she looks up at Gale to see if he'd felt it too.

"We're slowing down," he says, his gray eyes scanning the ceiling of the craft then out over the oblivious survivors. "We must be there."

#######

They herd them out, down little ramps that clatter and bang, threaten to collapse under the heavy feet of the District Twelve survivors, into a cavernous room with dull, flickering lights and men in gray uniforms waiting around the edges.

"Everyone must go through inspection to make sure you aren't carrying parasites or communicable diseases," a chilly woman's voice tells them overhead. "Please form orderly lines at an inspector you are directed to."

The men in gray, what looks to be hundreds of them, come out into the crowd and begin taking names, sending individuals and families off to queues.

They direct the Everdeens away, then the Hawthornes, then they come to Madge.

"Name?" the man with overly large front teeth and a nasally voice asks.

"Madge Undersee," she gestures to her mother, "and Matilda Undersee."

His bushy eyebrows arch. "Undersee? As in the Mayor?"

Uncertain, Madge nods.

A small, unpleasant smile forms on the man's thin lips. "I'm afraid you'll need to go to the debriefing room."

He snaps his finger and a pair of large men, almost as big as Gale, come up and take Madge and her mother by the arms, shoving them roughly toward the back of the room, away from where everyone else was being sent.

"Why do I have to go to debriefing?" Madge asks, digging her heels in as her heart speeds up. She doesn't know anything, and her mother most definitely doesn't know anything, they don't have anything to tell.

"As the daughter and wife of the Capitol's representative in Twelve we need to take you in to custody, just until we can ensure you aren't sympathetic to the regime."

Madge feels her mother's hand squeeze tighter, and when she catches her out the corner of her eye she sees what little color her mother had has drained out. Even she knows something is wrong.

"They aren't 'sympathetic' to the Capitol," Madge hears Gale growl right before she's jerked from the men's grasp and pulled roughly against his chest. "And they aren't going anywhere."

"Mr. Hawthorne, you must understand, we need to-"

"She risked her life to warn us what was coming. She could've saved herself and her family and left the rest of us to burn but she didn't." Gale narrows his eyes. "You aren't taking her anywhere and if you try I'll make you eat your clipboard."

The man makes a noise, sucking air through his protruding teeth, and glares at Gale.

After several seconds of grumbling, shooting Gale nasty looks, the man finally relents.

"Fine," he spits. "Take her to line-"

"They're coming with me," Gale cuts him off, pressing his palm to the small of Madge's back and steering her away from the man.

Heart still pounding, Madge swallows down bile and looks over her shoulder at Gale.

His face is set, jaw clenched and eyes focused on where his family had been sent as he pushes Madge through the thinning crowd, her mother trailing after them.

"Gale," Madge starts, biting her lip. "You shouldn't-Thank you."

For the briefest of seconds his eyes flicker down to her, and he smiles. "Don't mention it."

#######

The inspector combs through their greasy, knotted hair, checking for lice and bugs and any number of other things. She checks in their mouths, blinds them with a light, listens to their lungs and hearts before drawing a small sample of blood.

"Move up to the history, missy," the elderly woman tells them, directing them to a chubby girl with pig tailed hair, sitting at a table with a small stack of papers on it.

Taking her mother's hand, Madge pulls her along, up to the table, nestled between the Everdeens and the Hawthornes. Gale refuses to let them move Madge and her mother from his eyesight, threatening the boy that had tried to speed up the line by sending Madge and her mother several lines down.

The girl, her name badge says 'Seren', smiles cheerfully at them, before rattling off a series of questions.

"Family history first. Any heart or blood pressure problems, lung problems, gastrointestinal or urinary problems? Strokes, seizures, epilepsy? Genetic defects?"

Madge racks her brain, trying to think of any problems her family has ever had, but can't think of any. She's never really asked.

"Oh," her mother sighs. "My father had a stroke, and Madge's grandmother on her father's side had childhood asthma."

"She did?" Madge frowns, she'd never asked her father about his family's medical history, she'd never thought she'd have to know, he'd always be there.

Her mother nods serenely.

"Well, and one of my dad's sister's-"

"Do you need personal history next, dear?" Madge's mother cuts her off, much to Madge's annoyance.

The girl nods and presses her pen to the tablet expectantly.

"Migraines, for me, and that's all." Madge's mother presses her fingers to her temples to demonstrate the severity of her ailment.

It takes great restraint for Madge not to add morphling addiction and depression to her mother's list for her. Instead, she shakes her head. "I don't have any history."

With a nod, the girl takes their papers and adds them to her stack before sending them on, or at least trying to. Gale snaps his fingers and shakes his head, clearly telling Madge not to take another step before his family has been sent on to.

It takes another several minutes before Mrs. Hawthorne finishes listing off all the ailments that have befallen her children over their lives, ending with Posy's bought of measles, then they move on too, enveloping Madge and her mother in their group.

"Why do they need all this information?" Gale asks, shooting the skinny boy that had taken his family history a dark look.

Madge shrugs. It doesn't make much sense to her, but then again, Thirteen isn't supposed to exist, maybe this is how they've survived, by being stringent about admitting people into their fold.

They're led to another large room. It has high ceilings and better lighting, white and bright and blinding for the first few minutes before their eyes adjust to the glare.

There are hundreds of long tables, set up with toiletries of every kind, towels and washrags, combs, and toothbrushes as well as small basins that can be filled with water.

The group gathers up their necessities and settles over in a corner to clean up and wait for the next phase of the entry into Thirteen.

Madge fills a basin for both her mother and her and washes her face, scrubs off several layers of grim and filth, then combs the knots and tangles out of her hair. She almost feels alive again.

Once she's dried off, let herself be amused by Vick and Rory trying to splash each other with their dirty water, Madge glances over to Gale.

He's washed up, but his shoulder is still bothering him as he tries in vain to shave. His arm just won't cooperate and the inspector had put it in a sling, further hindering him.

When he nicks his chin, curses under his breath, Madge scoots away from her mother and over to him.

"Do you need some help?"

Gale grimaces as he rinses his razor off in the basin, shaking his head. "I'll get it eventually."

Glancing back at his mother, who is still struggling with Posy and won't be able to help him for several minutes at least, Madge holds her hand out. "I can help."

"I'd like to keep my nose, thanks," he chuckles, taking the razor back to his face.

Madge rolls her eyes and reaches out, snatching it from his hand and popping up on her knees.

"I used to help my Poppa shave when I was little. Then my dad, and occasionally my dad had me practice on Mr. Abernathy while he was passed out." She rinses it in the basin again before holding it up and raising her eyebrows. "Trust me?"

Staring at her for a minute, inspecting her for any hint she's joking, Gale finally nods. "Don't bleed me out."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Carefully, Madge cleans up the parts he's already worked on before cleaning the razor and beginning on the rest. It takes a few minutes, his beard is coarse and thick, taking more than one swipe to smooth his skin, but eventually she finishes.

"There, still have a nose and most of your blood even."

Gale runs his hand over his face, one cheek then the other, his jaw line and chin, then smiles. "Not bad."

Someone whistles, and when Madge turns she spots Rory and Vick, making kissy faces at Gale.

"Shut up," he growls at them, slapping the water in his basin towards them, causing them to shriek.

Rory rolls out of the line of fire, up onto his feet, and grins. "Shoulda left the hair, Madge. It improved his looks. The less we see of Gale's face the better."

With that he takes off, clearly expecting retaliation from Gale.

"That little asshole is gonna get it," Gale grumbles.

As Gale slowly gets to his feet, probably to chase Rory down, a man in one of the now familiar gray outfits of the District Thirteen administrators comes over.

"Mr. Gale Hawthorne?" He asks, looking somewhat unimpressed.

Gale nods. "What?"

The man straighten up, gives Gale another once over, then gestures to the door. "I was sent to retrieve you. There's a matter that needs your attention."

Gale frowns. "A 'matter that needs my attention'?" He narrows his eyes. "What?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

"Then I'm afraid I can't go with you," Gale tells him curtly, turning back to Madge and rolling his eyes.

"Mr. Hawthorne-"

"You're just trying to trick me," Gale snaps as he turns back to the man, shielding Madge from sight and drawing himself up and looming over the man. "You're trying to get me away so you can snatch Madge and her mother away, aren't you?"

Madge feels her stomach drop. She hadn't even thought of that.

Stuttering, the man backs up. "No, I assure you, we aren't going to take Miss Undersee or her mother anywhere. They've received clearance. This is another matter entirely."

"What matter?" Gale growls. "I'm not coming without a reason."

The man's eyes dart around, considering what he's gotten himself into, a bead of sweat forms on his brow and trickles down the side of his face then to his neck as he thinks. Finally, he sighs.

"They-they've requested for your presence. For when Katniss Everdeen wakes up."

Gale's eyes widen.

"I'm to bring her mother and sister too," the man adds, gesturing to where Mrs. Everdeen and Prim are sitting, still cleaning up, oblivious to what's going on behind them.

For several seconds, Gale stares at the man, gauging his sincerity, then he sighs.

He turns back to his family and gestures to Madge. "Keep an eye on her."

His mother nods, eyes narrowed on the man her son is about to leave with.

Squatting down, Gale focuses his eyes on Madge, holding her in a steady gaze. "Don't go with anyone."

He doesn't wait for an answer, just gets up and follows behind the man, through the somewhat less grimy group of survivors, before vanishing across the room, leaving Madge with an uncertain feeling in the pit of her stomach.

#######

Gale doesn't come back for several hours, not until after the families are assigned to apartments and long after Madge has been snatched away from his family.

They wait in long lines, getting progressively hungrier, thirstier, and sleepier as the people of Thirteen pass them clothes: shapeless garments all the same hopeless shade of gray as if to drive home the fact that there's no sun and they may all not see it for a very long time. Best get used to it.

"Madge and her mom are with us," Vick had told the old woman making the room assignments when they'd all changed out of their smoky, sweaty clothes and into their drab District Thirteen clothes. "My brother said so."

"Is she his wife?" the old woman had asked in a croaky voice.

"No," Mrs. Hawthorne had begun, "but-"

"No 'buts', ma'am. Only married couples or families are allowed to board together. She and her mother will share with another single parent family."

Despite loud protests by both Vick and Rory, the old woman won't change her mind and Madge and her mother are soon placed in an apartment with a middle aged woman and her two noisy children.

Mrs. Hawthorne frowns deeply as the woman and her two children vanish down the hall to the elevators that will lead lower into Thirteen and then to Madge's new apartment. "Gale isn't going to like this."

Madge shrugs. She doubts Gale will give her so much as a passing thought now that Katniss is back in the picture.

She mentally slaps herself. That isn't fair. Katniss is her friend and she's known Gale longer. He belongs with Katniss, he always has, no matter what else is happening.

Vick throws his arms around her, pressing his chin into her shoulder; he's gotten taller over the past year. "You can still come up and stay with us."

Posy nods from her mother's hip, her eyes drooping. The day has been entirely too long for her, even if she'd gotten a nap in the middle.

Madge wants to tell them she'll come up every day, play games with them and read to them, but she knows this is the end of that adventure. Things are shifting back, just like they had after the last Games.

Katniss is back and with her return is a return to the old system, and Madge's place in it isn't one she enjoys.

There'll be no playing with Vick, reading to Posy, or teasing Rory. No flirting with Gale.

The Hawthornes belong to Katniss, Madge was only borrowing them, keeping them warm for her. Now it's time to back off, give them back, even if it hurts.

Instead of telling them all that, explaining the complicated web of social protocol she's having to navigate, Madge just smiles, nods, and takes her mother by the arm.

She's being cast into the dark pit of District Thirteen, far from the Hawthornes and the Everdeens, and she thinks that might be for the best. It'll make extracting herself from them that much easier. Avoiding them, finding ways to move without running into them, will be much simpler living several floors away.

"See you," she tells them, even though she doesn't think she will.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for putting up with my nonsense.

Neither Madge nor her mother get much sleep that night, for more than one reason.

Madge's nights in the forest had been filled with nightmares of her father, of fire and bombs, but sleep isn't even a possibility in their new home.

Their roommate's children, a pair of girls who have apparently never had a bedtime or used their 'indoor voices' in their short lives, keep them up with noisy games. Very noisy games, which involve throwing a hard rubber ball against the wall and screeching at the top of their lungs until the very early morning.

"I can't live like this," Madge's mother tells her weakly, covering her ears with her hands and fighting back tears. "Can't she make them stop?"

Whether because she couldn't-the girls had apparently carried on like this their whole lives-or because she simply no longer heard the hell her little darlings were raising, their mother did nothing and seemed wholly unaware of their antics when Madge asked her about it in the morning.

"You must be dreaming," their mother had told Madge. "How could they be up now if they'd been up all night?"

Madge isn't sure where the pair get all their energy, but it certainly doesn't come from resting.

Glad to be free, even if only for a few hours, as the little script on her arm tells her she will be, Madge gets up at an unpleasantly early hour and gathers up her mother before heading to breakfast.

Her mother rubs at the tattoo, tries to blot it off as they walk to the cafeteria, frowning deeply when it refuses to vanish.

"I don't like this," she tells Madge. "It makes me look dirty, and I'm not."

Looping her arm through her mother's, Madge tries to comfort her. "It's okay, mom. Everyone has one. They won't think anything of it."

She looks unconvinced, but increases her pace anyway.

When they get to the cafeteria, at what Madge feels is an unholy hour, they find it completely empty save a few unhappy looking workers.

"Excuse me," Madge asks a man in a grease stained apron. "What time is breakfast served?"

"Same time everyday and not yet," he tells her sharply before lumbering away, grumbling to himself.

Still confused, Madge looks around, trying not to inhale the unpleasant smells coming from the kitchen. Something horrible finally begins to dawn on her.

"Oh."

Looking down at her arm, Madge frowns, sighs, then turns to her mother. "Stay here."

Dashing off and leaving her wary looking mother standing in the middle of the cafeteria, Madge quickly finds a tall, thin woman with all her dull brown hair trapped up under her hairnet.

"Ma'am?" She gets the woman's attention and holds out her arm. "I think maybe we're supposed to help in the kitchen."

The woman, her name badge reads 'Constance', nearly has to double over to see Madge's arm, squinting at it for a minute before sighing. "That you are."

She lifts her arm, which isn't much more than bone with loose flesh draped over it, and points her bony finger toward a lonely looking doorway across the room. "Go talk to Josephette. She'll straighten you out."

With a nod of thanks Madge runs back to her mother and gives her the news.

"So come on," she takes her mother by the hand. "Might as well get this over with."

Josephette, a tiny, ancient woman made of wrinkles and an overly large pair of glasses, nods and smiles toothlessly as Madge explains to her what's happened.

"I have no cooking experience. At all." And she's certain that getting too close to whatever they're attempting to smother in gravy in the kitchen will only kill any desire she has to learn.

Josephette, the manager of the kitchen, gives her a sympathetic smile. "I wish I could tell you to head back home, missy, but rules is rules you know." She stands, every bone in her fragile body cracking as she does. "You two must be a special case. No one else has been assigned jobs yet, you know?"

Madge grits her teeth. No, she didn't know that.

This is retaliation. The people that had wanted to take Madge and her mother to holding are getting back at them for escaping that fate by making them serve the starving masses. It's meant to be a slap in the face, and that more than anything annoys Madge. Her grandfather had been a cook of sorts. Just because Madge has no cooking skills doesn't mean the work done by those in the kitchen is degrading, just not something Madge has any ability to do.

She silently fumes on their behalf.

Giving Madge a small smile, Josephette jerks her thumb toward the kitchens and the nauseating smell.

Seeing no way out despite being certain she'll end up poisoning half the District, Madge trails after, towing her mother along as she does.

"They sent me a dossier on you two," Josephette finally says. "The Mayor's wife and daughter, huh?"

Knowing that this is an attempt at humiliating them, Madge raises her chin. She won't let them crush her.

"Don't get all defensive, missy. I'm not going to put you down for that," Josephette chuckles. "You used to work in the family candy shop, Mrs. Undersee?"

Madge's mother smiles brightly. "Oh yes! My father owned it. We sold it after he died."

Josephette gives them another gummy smile and leads them to a back room. It's small, gray, like everything else, and filled with metal bowls and utensils. It smells like cleaning solution.

"It's been years since we had any candy," Josephette tells them. "If you remember how."

Looking over at her mother, beaming as though her birthday has come early, Madge knows she most certainly remembers how.

#######

For nearly a week, from sun up to sun down-if there had been a sun to measure time by-Madge works in the kitchen with her mother, making every candy she can remember how to.

It isn't bad work, and at times she finds herself enjoying it. At the very least it keeps her mind active, lets it wander to things she knows she shouldn't think too hard on less often.

What had been intended as a comical punishment, forcing the two formerly most powerful women in the District into kitchen work, hadn't exactly panned out. In fact, it had helped Madge in her efforts to avoid the Hawthornes, extract herself from their lives and give them back to the person they rightfully belonged to. Katniss.

Besides, while it wasn't Madge's ideal way to spend her days, her mother glowed and hummed, clearly enjoying every moment of her time making candies for the citizens of District Thirteen, even if none of them knew who was making the treats for them.

It would've been perfect if not for Vick and Rory's persistence in finding them.

He and Rory had apparently gone to the cramped little apartment Madge and her mother were being forced to share with the woman and her children and poked and prodded until they were told where the pair had been assigned. After they figured out the kitchen schedule they showed up every day without fail, sometimes when Madge suspects they ought to be in class.

"You made these?" Vick asks, popping a piece of glass candy into his mouth and cracking it between his teeth.

"They don't let us have much when we're in line," Rory grumbles as he picks at some divinity, eating it in pieces while he watches Madge's mother make more.

"When do you get off?" Vick asks between stolen candies. "We can walk you home."

Madge shakes her head. He already knows the answer. "Not until after the dishes are done."

She gives him a small smile when he huffs in annoyance.

"We can come back for you," Vick offers, widening his eyes in an effort to win Madge over.

She shakes her head and he scowls.

"Come on, Madge," Rory pleads between bites of fudge. "You don't really want to go back to the devil's spawn do you?"

Madge shoots him a look. She'd told both he and Vick about the noisy girls and their useless mother on the first day they'd come to see her, about the sleepless nights and the pounding on the walls. They'd both offered up their own beds as an alternative.

"Me and Rory can sleep on the floor and you and your mom can sleep on the beds," Vick had eagerly told her.

"Vick," Madge had given him a small smile. "You know they won't let us do that. Families as big as yours get their own apartment and no add-ons, remember?"

"Well if you want to share a bed with Gale we can swing it that the two of you are shacking up until you get married or something," Rory offers, wagging his eyebrows.

"No," Madge answered flatly back, fighting down the fluttering in her stomach at the thought of sharing any space with their big brother.

With a roll of her eyes, Madge glares at Rory. "I may not want to go back to our room, but I'm tired and dirty when I get off and I don't want to do anything."

It sounds like a weak excuse to her ears, pathetic even, but she doesn't have any other ammo.

"Come on, Madge. Posy misses you," Vick whines.

Madge doubts Posy even remembers who she is.

"Gale misses you," Rory adds with another obnoxious wag of his eyebrows, earning him a lump of fudge between the eyes. "Hey!"

"If you don't want Gale around…" Vick starts, chewing his lip.

Madge almost snaps that she wants Gale around more than anything, but manages to hold it in and focuses on breaking apart the strawberry flavored glass candy her mother had passed off to her.

Exasperated by their persistence, Madge takes off her little plastic gloves and presses her fingers to her eyes. "That isn't it-"

"So you do miss Gale," Rory cocks an eyebrow.

"That-no-well-"

"Do you miss parts of Gale?"

"Rory!" Madge's eyes fly open to find Rory grinning wickedly at her.

"What?" He asks as innocently as he can manage, which isn't very. "He won't even be there for ages. He's never home."

That doesn't make Madge feel any better. Gale not being there means he's somewhere else, more specifically most likely with someone else and that makes her stomach churn with jealousy.

He's with Katniss. Even if neither of the boys say as much. Gale is with Katniss, and Madge can imagine any number of things they might be doing. None of it settles her stomach.

"You should go with the boys," Madge's mother finally comes out of her candy making trance and says. "I'll go back to the apartment and hide in the bathroom."

"Mother, no." Madge presses her fingers to her temples. She isn't going to have a semi-pleasant evening while her mother hides in the bathroom from the evil brats inhabiting their apartment.

"You're invited too, Mrs. Undersee!" Vick tells her, his voice cracking slightly. His cheeks darken and he coughs. "I mean, we want you to come too."

Despite heavy misgivings, Madge and her mother go with the boys, down the twisting dark halls, in the silent elevators, to their family's apartment.

It's as gray as everything else, but clean, neat and tidy. Madge expected nothing less.

"Madge! Matilda!" Mrs. Hawthorne beams at them and pulls them into a hug. "I'm so glad you finally came."

Posy, it seems, does remember them, throwing herself at Madge's stomach and into a vice like hug when she spots her.

"I thought we'd lost you!" She squeals.

Gale is nowhere to be seen.

"We're going to play a game tonight," Vick quickly tells them, pulling Madge from Posy's grip. "Do you know go fish?"

#######

After what feels like several thousand rounds of go fish, then playing a memory game, then a guessing game, and finally fifty-two card pick up, the evening slowly catches up to the children.

Posy gets cranky, throwing herself on the cards and refusing to participate in the pick up before her mother gathers her up and takes her to bed, telling Madge and her mother a quick good night.

"I'm just not young enough to stay up so late," she tells Madge through a yawn.

Vick nods off, despite telling them he's 'only resting his eyes' several times before finally drifting into sleep.

Rory, however, shows no sign of fading.

"Alright, now that the babies are off in slumber land," Rory pops his fingers, "we can play some real cards."

Madge snorts at that while her mother sleeps quietly on her shoulder.

"You know poker?" He asks.

Nodding, Madge takes the deck from him and starts cutting it. Her father and Mr. Abernathy have -had a weekly game for years. They'd taught Madge everything they knew.

The memory stings, she doesn't want to think about the past, so she bats it away and focuses on the cards. "What are we playing for?"

"Clothes?"

Groaning, Madge shakes her head. "No, Rory, we aren't playing poker then."

"Why not?"

She shoots him a look. "You know why."

"You aren't any fun." Rolling his eyes, he takes the cards back. "Fine. Truth or dare."

He's up to something, he always is, but she doesn't know what, so she takes the bait.

"Fine, yourself." She bites her lip. "Truth."

"Damn." He glances over his shoulder, to where his mother had vanished with Posy minutes before. "Alright, tell me, Miss Undersee, is it my charming personality or my budding manhood that draws you to me?"

Madge snorts so hard she nearly wakes her mother. "Budding manhood? Rory, who do you hang out with to come up with this stuff?"

He shrugs, scratches at his nose. "Just answer the question."

Trying not to laugh louder, Madge grins. "Well, while your 'budding manhood' is impressive, I think, you definitely have the most interesting personality of any guy I've ever met."

Rory smiles. "Thank you."

She hadn't necessarily meant it as a compliment, but however he takes it is fine with her.

"My turn." Madge presses her hands together in thought. "Okay, Young Master Hawthorne, who do you have a crush on?"

"Aside from you?" He tugs his mouth over in contemplation. "Chastity Shumard. She has really big-"

Madge holds up her hand. "Do you not think of anything else?"

"Rarely."

For a second Madge stares at him, wondering how someone so completely and hopelessly open, friendly and funny and obnoxiously charming as Rory could possibly share genes with Gale. He and Vick are the antithesis of their brother. Where it took a disaster for him to even see Madge as a human being, his brothers had never uttered so much as a disparaging word in her presence.

It is a conundrum, and not one she's likely to decipher anytime soon.

"Alright," Rory crosses his arms, his face uncharacteristically serious. "Do you like Gale or not?"

It takes a minute for his words to register with her, roll around in her mind and create a response.

"What?" Is as articulate as her mind can make her mouth.

"Do you like my idiot brother?" Rory frowns deeply. "It isn't a deep question. Either yes or no."

Madge closes her eyes. He might not think it's a complicated question, but really, it is.

Gale is with Katniss, even if not in any official capacity. That's how it's always been and that's how it'll continue to be. There's no place for Madge in the equation or in his heart, no matter how she may feel about him.

"It doesn't matter," she finally says, giving him a small look through her bangs. "What I feel doesn't matter."

"Says who?" He looks offended on her behalf.

Sighing, Madge rubs her eyes, she's tired and she won't get enough sleep as it is, adding Rory's probing question to her mind will only make the few short hours the sisters aren't awake annoying her restless.

"No one has to say it, Rory." Some people just matter less, she thinks, and she's one that matters less. Definitely less than Katniss.

He opens his mouth, starts to give his rebuttal, but the door to the apartment open and in steps Gale.

His color is better, despite there being no woods for him to disappear in to. The doctors have apparently fixed his arm, the sling is gone and he seems to be moving it without difficulty.

The gray of his outfit seems to make his eyes glow unnaturally, brilliant and bright, stormy as ever, and Madge feels her mouth go dry at the sight. It takes effort to keep her jaw from dropping open.

His eyebrows knit together as he takes in the scene, one of his brothers sprawled out and the other holding a deck of cards in front of the former mayor's daughter and wife, both covered from head to toe in white powder. It's a baffling vision.

"Hi," he finally says, his voice rumbling through the still air of the apartment.

As if his voice drew her from her trance, Madge suddenly feels the air grow heavy. She needs to leave.

"We were just leaving," she says, pulling her mother up without bothering to wake her first.

"Are we going back?" Her mother asks, yawning. "I was enjoying the quiet…"

Gale frowns as Madge brushes past him, muttering a soft goodbye to Rory as she heads for the door, ignoring his protest.

"Are we in a hurry?" Her mother asks as Madge lets the door slide closed behind them and tugs her down the hall, toward the elevators and freedom.

"Yes," she mumbles, rushing down the hall.

It's late and the hallways are empty, the only noises are Madge and her mother's footsteps echoing emptily against the dark floors and the hum of electricity through the little sconces on the walls providing the dull shine of light.

When they get to the elevator Madge frantically smashes the button down, wanting nothing more than to get as much distance between herself and the Hawthornes as she can. It was a mistake coming to their game night and she'd known it. Never again.

After what feels to be an eternity, the doors to the elevator slide open, revealing the small dimly lit compartment, gray as always.

Her mother in tow, Madge gets on and presses her back to the metal wall and her hands to her face, fighting off a sob of relief.

She shouldn't have come. The Hawthornes' apartment is off-limits and she knows that. Seeing Gale is off-limits. It only constricts her heart and makes breathing uncomfortable. Her infatuation is going to be the end of her and she can't accept that.

A cool hand comes to rest on her shoulder, startling her into dropping her hands.

Hazy blue eyes and pale lips smile sadly at her. "My sweet girl."

Unable to keep it in anymore, a small sob breaks from Madge's chest and out her mouth as she crumbles down against the wall of the elevator as it descends deeper into District Thirteen.

"I'm being ridiculous," she blubbers, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand as her mother wraps her arm around her and whispers soft and comforting things into her hair.

Maybe it's the lack of sleep or the long hours or Rory's questions or her weakness in general, but she can't stop crying. She's torturing herself. She'd been doing so well and in a moment of weakness she'd gone to a place she'd known Gale would be unavoidable. This was a hell of her own making and now she'd be up most of the night crying over something completely within her control.

"The heart is always ridiculous, love," her mother whispers, pressing a kiss into Madge's hair.

Looking up, though her powdered sugar coated hair and teary eyelashes, Madge sees her mother give her the smallest smile. She understands, somehow.

Nodding, Madge tucks her chin to her chest and lets her mother hold her for the rest of the ride

#######

They slowly make their way back to the apartment, through the dim halls of the lowest level and the musky smell of garbage. Madge suspects they were given an apartment closest to the garbage processing center.

There's a sliver of light peeking out from under the door to their apartment, cutting harshly into the dark of the hall. Madge almost groans, despite the lateness, or perhaps because of it, the girls are still up.

Despite all past nights, she'd hoped fruitlessly that they'd have finally decided to stop being nocturnal.

Exchanging a somber look with her mother, Madge fishes the keycard to the apartment out of her pocket and swipes it, causing the door to swish open noisily.

It's silent.

Confused and a little worried, Madge holds her mother back and peeks in.

The two little girls are sitting on the floor, slumped over onto one another, barely able to keep their eyes open. Their mother is sitting, stiff and terrified in one of the two lumpy chairs the living room contained.

In the other, looking a bit yellow and quite annoyed, is Mr. Abernathy.

"Where've you two been?"

Madge is too stunned by his appearance to answer. Her mother, on the other hand, leans in past the edge of the door, eyes wide. "Haymitch?"

Every ounce of irritation seems to melt from his face at his name. His mouth twitches up into a smile, making every wrinkle on his face crinkle severely.

Her mother pushes Madge in, but before they can even close the door, Mr. Abernathy has strode across the room, large gray bag in hand and started pushing them back out.

"Mr. Abernathy," Madge yelps as he takes her by the upper arm and ushers her back into the hall. "What are you doing?"

He glares back over his shoulder at the roommate and her still children before hitting the keypad, making the door fly shut.

"Getting you two out of here," he tells her gruffly, throwing the bag over his shoulder.

Madge's mother, her eyes glowing in the light of the small security light by their door, frowns. "But we live here."

Mr. Abernathy shifts the bag on his shoulder and watches Madge's mother as she continues to stare at the door, expecting it to open and suck her back in.

He reaches out, gently takes her hand and pulls her gaze from the door. "Not anymore, 'Tilda."

A little frustrated noise makes its way out Madge's throat.

"Why not?" Why is he suddenly coming to their rescue? They've been there for weeks. Where has he been?

For a second he just stares at her, considering his answer, then he sighs.

"Haven't been much in the way of helping anyone the past couple of weeks," he finally admits, a small defeated smile finding its way onto his lips.

It takes a moment of staring, taking in his sallow color and bloodshot eyes, the slight tremor in his hand as he holds onto the strap of the bag, for his words to resonate with her. He's been ill. There's no alcohol in Thirteen, she'd heard some men grumbling about it in the kitchens. Mr. Abernathy's been going through an unpleasant withdrawal.

He hadn't even been able to take care of himself most likely, let alone come and help Madge and her mother out of their livable situation.

It makes Madge's heart ache and the long days seem paltry.

A minute, or maybe two, passes, and Madge finds her hand reaching out for his. He's here now and that's really all that matters.

She gives him a grateful smile. "Where's our new home?"

It's probably a trick of the light, almost definitely is, but Madge would swear she sees tears in his eyes as he takes her hand in his. The tremor almost vanishes as he holds onto her.

#######

Mr. Abernathy's apartment is smaller than the Hawthornes', but larger than the one they'd shared with the woman and her children.

There's one bedroom with a double bed covered in a drab quilt with a pair of flat pillows. A single bathroom, small kitchenette, and a living room large enough for a battered looking couch.

"You girls take the bed," he tells them. "I'll take the couch."

It feels wrong, this is his apartment after all, but there's not another solution.

Madge's mother falls instantly asleep, she's never had trouble with that, excepting the past couple of weeks with the devil's spawn.

It's less easy for Madge.

She tosses and turns for several hours, her mind filled with visions of her father and fire, or Gale and Katniss and all the possibilities her life could've held.

Finally, as morning approaches, she gets up to raid the tiny fridge in Mr. Abernathy's apartment. He shouldn't have it so she suspects he may have stolen it from somewhere, but she doesn't care. He might have some milk.

Quietly, she pads out the bedroom door and through the small stretch of living room to the kitchen. Without so much as a squeak, she opens the fridge, only to find it empty.

"Haven't had much reason for stocking it."

Madge nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

He smirks at her startled expression as he leans on the short bar separating the kitchen and living area. "Didn't mean to startle you, sweetheart."

"I'll bet," she mutters, shutting the door and glaring at him for a second longer before giving it up. He knows she isn't mad.

A little crease forms between his eyes and he studies her for a moment before he gestures for her to follow him.

They cross the room, a short distance, to the couch. Mr. Abernathy drops down with a groan, onto the sagging couch, and pats the small cushion beside him. "Have a seat kiddo."

Annoyed at his calling her a kid, she's the same age as Katniss and everyone seems to regard her as an adult, Madge crosses her arms and sits stiffly at the edge of the cushion. She turns slightly and gives him a sharp look. "What?"

He pokes her in the side. "What's with the attitude, Pearl?"

Trying not to giggle, it tickles when he does that, Madge lets herself slouch down beside him, cutting her eyes over and sighing. "I'm not a kid."

A little frown forms on his face. He reaches out and brushes a wayward strand of hair from her shoulder and sighs. "Being a kid isn't the worst thing you know?"

Madge sighs. She knows it isn't, but with everything that's happened, she feels less like a child than she ever has.

For a long moment Mr. Abernathy watches her, seems to be thinking of something, picking at his nails and chewing the inside of his cheek before he finally decides to voice whatever it is he's been contemplating.

"Why were you crying earlier?"

Madge cuts him a look. How did he know she'd been crying? "I wasn't."

He narrows his eyes. "You were."

"I wasn't."

"Was."

"Was no-oh, never mind," Madge starts to push herself up. "I need to try and get some sleep. I have work in the morning."

He pulls her back onto the couch by the back of her nightgown. "Sit yourself down. You don't have kitchen duty in the morning."

Madge crosses her arms and tilts her head. "What do you mean I don't have kitchen duty?"

A little grin forms on Mr. Abernathy's lips. "'Cause you'll be working with me."

She narrows her eyes in suspicion. There's a catch. He can't have convinced those in charge to let them change rooms and jobs all in one go.

"If I answer your question, right?"

He shakes his head. "No catch, Pearl. This is free and clear. Although I would like it if you told me who made you cry."

Covering her eyes, Madge shakes her head. "No one made me cry. I made me cry."

"Because of someone," he says again.

"Because of me."

He doesn't look convinced, just huffs and wraps his arm around her and pulls her to his side. "Whatever it is, or whoever it is, isn't worth crying over, understand?"

Letting her head come to a rest on his shoulder, Madge inhales the scent of soap and detergent on him, closes her eyes and pretends she's home and he's waiting with her on the back porch for her father to come home.

There's no creaking of the porch swing, no crickets chirping, no smell of grass and earth and warmth in the air, though, only cold air and steel and the slow clicking of the clock on the wall, and that kills the illusion.

When she opens her eyes she isn't greeted by a warm summer night, but the eternally gray walls of Mr. Abernathy's apartment.

Her father is gone and he isn't coming back. He's lost to whatever awaits them after this life. Gale and his family are gone. They belong with Katniss, in her world. A world full of strong people, not girls who cry in an elevator over seeing a boy they have no chance with. A world Madge doesn't belong to in the slightest.

She sighs. "Understood."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for not strangling me.

"Soldier Undersee," Madge hears her name on her third day as Mr. Abernathy's 'assistant', just before they ask her to pass along a stack of papers. She cringes. She hates being called 'soldier'. No one in the kitchens had called her by any title and she finds it grating to hear one being used now. Besides, nothing they ever need from her is even remotely close to 'soldier' work.

She isn't a soldier, she's a secretary at best.

Though really, she thinks Mr. Abernathy keeps her around because she's the only person he trusts to keep him informed.

"Bunch of idiots," he told her the first day, before she'd even been introduced to anyone. "Planners and schemers but not a single do-er."

Madge almost points out that Mr. Abernathy is a planner too, a schemer beyond anyone else, but since he's proven he's also a 'do-er' she keeps her mouth shut.

The meetings she attends on his behalf are numbing, but Madge keeps meticulous notes, writing down every word for his review.

Sometimes Katniss is there, as is Gale, but Madge makes herself small, not wanting them to see her. Though she doubts that without throwing her hands up and dancing a jig either one would notice her anyway.

Gale is absorbed in the planning, the talks of fighting and the rebellion. Katniss isn't absorbed in anything. She almost looks bored most times she bothers to show up. It annoys the steel haired President Coin, who makes scathing remarks when Katniss abruptly gets up and leaves during meetings, which is often.

"I told you we should've rescued the boy first," she says, not bothering to lower her voice as Katniss vanishes out the door one afternoon.

Madge bites her tongue. She wants to tell the horrible old woman that Katniss would probably agree with her that Peeta would've been the wiser choice to save, judging by the flatness of her eyes and the slump of her shoulders, but Madge really doesn't know.

Without Peeta, Katniss seems so impossibly small, so ineffective. Peeta had been the mouthpiece, the brains of the pair. That was easy to see. Katniss was impulsive and determined, but Peeta thought things through, he's the reason Katniss even had a chance, at least in Madge's mind. Without him there would've been just a silly girl in a dress who loved her sister. He made her so much more. No matter what the Districts thought or felt, it was the Capitol that had the power to save, and without Peeta Katniss wouldn't have had that backing.

They aren't trying to sway the Capitol anymore though, they're trying to bolster the resistance, the battered and weary Districts, but from what Madge can see they're following the Capitol's rules for swaying.

And from what she can see, they're nothing more than a poor imitation of the Capitol. A washed out mirror image of the people that had ruled District Twelve's existence for the past seventy-five years. It makes Madge uneasy, like she's being watched constantly, a sensation she's all too familiar with from growing up in the Mayoral house.

Outfits and films-"propos", they call them- are the order of the day. They're ways to show that Katniss is alive and well and fighting. Because, without her, there is no rebellion. At least that's how the meetings paint it.

"Why do we have to have a rallying point?" Madge asks Mr. Abernathy afterward when she meets him outside the hospital wing before lunch. "Katniss isn't well. I can see it, why can't they?"

"Well or not, she's what we have," he tells her, wearily pressing his fingers to his eyes.

"There are others," Madge argues.

"She's the one people have latched on to. She's already the face of this show, whether she likes it or not," he grumbles, waving a hand in dismissal. "Nothing to do about it now."

Madge stops and crosses her arms over her middle, glares at him. "She didn't ask to be."

"No one ever does," he points out at he takes her arm and ushers her to the cafeteria.

The best thing about being Mr. Abernathy's assistant is that he's received permission to eat in his quarters, away from the general population-probably for their protection. Away from the Hawthornes and the Everdeens and everyone else Madge knew from before. It's liberating.

They gather up their food in little containers, collect Madge's mother, and then head to the apartment before anyone else can even cross their path.

It's an odd sort of domesticity, eating around the little nicked coffee table with her mother and Mr. Abernathy. They talk about their day, mostly Madge's mother twittering about a new candy she'd remembered and repeating what the other cooks had told her about the going ons of the District.

"There was a pox epidemic," she tells them as she makes a design in her flavorless mush. "Killed off an awful lot, Josephette said. Left a lot more infertile…"

Madge frowns, wondering where her mother is going with her little tale.

"There's a man from Ten and he said we'll be the new breeding stock," she sighs.

"Doubt they'd force you to make anymore, 'Tilda." Mr. Abernathy chuckles, winking at Madge. "Even if your first one did turn out to be a stunner."

Madge rolls her eyes.

Her mother's nose scrunches up and she looks at Madge, reaches out and pats her hand with another sigh. "Oh, I wasn't thinking of myself, dear. Madge is such a pretty thing. What if they try to make her?"

Mr. Abernathy chokes on his mush. He glares at no one in particular. "The hell they will."

"Maybe they'll let you pair off with that sweet boy. The miner, Gale, who helped us in the woods." She drifts off. "He's such a lovely boy…"

"No, he isn't," Mr. Abernathy mutters, taking a long drink of water.

He looks so personally offended by her mother's suggestion Madge can't help but laugh.

"It isn't funny," Mr. Abernathy grumbles. "They even suggest something like that you come find me."

With another roll of her eyes, Madge nods. It's easier just to agree with him sometimes.

#######

Madge gets locked out during the broadcast, despite banging on the door and begging for someone to let her in. This is probably something Mr. Abernathy needs to know about after all. All the occupants of the room are deaf to her yells.

It's just like when she was small and her father would put her out of his office during important calls to the Capitol. The television is turned low and the hum of breathing and murmuring blocks her from hearing so much as a single word.

It's Peeta. She knows it is, she'd seen that much before Plutarch Heavensbee blocked her view and she was thrown out.

Heavensbee is a leech. Madge remembers Birdy mentioning him, back during the Seventy-Fourth Games. She'd said he was no one's friend, and Madge is inclined to agree. He might not be as bad as Coin, but he's oily and vile in his own way.

Even without the hope of hearing so much as a single word, Madge presses her ear to the door and strains.

Finally, she hears the words 'traitor' and 'liar', 'enemy', then there's a scuffle at the door and before she can clear away it flies open and she's knocked down, roughly onto her bottom, by someone fleeing the room.

Several soldiers stomp out, paying her no attention, and she finally starts to push herself up.

"So much for chivalry," she mutters to herself.

A hand suddenly wraps around the upper part of her arm and hoists her up, steadies her with a gentle touch on the back, sets her softly on her feet.

Grimacing, she turns, expecting to find Mr. Heavensbee, he's the only person who pays her any attention whether she likes it or not.

What she finds instead is Gale, bloody nose and all.

Backing away, she bumps into the wall, stepping on her dropped notes and pads.

He reaches up and rubs his nose, smearing a bit of the blood across his cheek and grimacing. "Sorry, I've looked better I guess."

Madge doesn't smile at his joke, just stares at him. It's been too long since she's gotten the chance and she wants to etch every nuance of his face into her memory.

He licks his thumb and rubs the blood off of it and onto his pants, while still watching Madge carefully. His eyebrows scrunch together. "You okay? You didn't hit your head did you?"

When she doesn't respond he reaches out and starts to brush his fingers over her head, but the sight of his still blood tinged fingers coming towards her startles her into speech.

"I'm fine," she says, a little too quickly.

"Did they step on you?" He asks, shooting a glare at the hallway the soldiers had disappeared down.

His concern is touching, but fleeting as his gaze shifts to the direction of the person that had barreled over her in the first place.

Of course. It would be Katniss. That's the story of her life it seems.

"Go," Madge gestures toward the empty hall. "Go make sure she's okay."

Whatever had happened with the television, with Peeta, had clearly unsettled her and no matter how irritated Madge finds herself feeling with her, she doesn't want Katniss suffering alone. There's no one better to comfort her than Gale, as much as that pains Madge.

For a second he doesn't seem to hear her, just continues to stare at her, probably inspecting her for nonexistent injuries before a flicker of a smile graces his face. "See you around then?"

Madge nods, even though she doubts he will. He never sees her.

#######

Madge furiously writes down every word of Coin's speech announcing Katniss as the Mockingjay.

Every pardon, every demand-stated and implied-is scribbled onto the little black notepad Madge had kept for Mr. Abernathy while he's recovering, detoxing from years of abusing his steady stream of alcohol.

Despite the grumbles and growls from the crowd, Madge smiles. Katniss is still herself. She's still thinking of others even if she seems so changed and distant.

Before the unenthusiastic patter dies off, Madge has taken off, down a narrow side hall that she isn't supposed to use that cuts her ten minutes quicker to the apartment, coming out into one of the main corridors.

"Miss Undersee," she hears her name called out by a drumming voice and she stops in her tracks.

Plutarch Heavensbee.

He's large, barrel-chested and big bellied with a ruddy complexion. He combs his light and thinning hair back with sausage thick fingers as he approaches Madge.

"And how are you today, my dear?" He asks, flashing his brilliant, falsely white teeth at her.

Madge shrugs and mumbles, keeping her eye line down and her face slightly hidden in the free strands of her hair. "Fine."

He reaches out and pushes her chin up with a finger, his lips stretched out in a smile as he does. "There now, pretty girl like you should keep her face up. Grace the world with your beauty."

Trying not to shrink back, Madge nods. He reminds her a little too much of the Glaives, the horrible siblings from the Capitol that Birdy had killed at the end of the Seventy-Fourth Games. It makes Madge wonder if Mr. Heavensbee's family tree has any Victors in it.

Taking his hand back from Madge's face, Mr. Heavensbee tucks both his hands into the pockets of his well tailored suit. Apparently he's beyond the fashion disaster that is District Thirteen.

"Now, Miss Undersee, since you're so highly regarded by Haymitch, I must ask you, what do you make of your little friend's demands?"

It's the first time anyone has asked her opinion. Not what Mr. Abernathy is going to think, not what her father-as a Capitol insider-would've thought, but what Madge thinks. It doesn't settle right with her.

"Why?" She keeps her expression even, unwilling to let her suspicion come out.

Mr. Heavensbee's smile widens as he chuckles, a throaty, wet sounding thing.

"Clever girl, that's what Haymitch always calls you. His clever girl." He surveys her through narrowed eyes. "You've known Katniss for a long time. Surely you have some thoughts on the demands she's made."

"Katniss cares," Madge tells him. "She's not going to let innocent people, victims of circumstance, be used to further whatever cause comes up next. It isn't right."

"You think Enobaria deserves the same level of immunity as your friend Peeta?"

It takes a second for Madge to remember that Enobaria is another Victor, another child forced into a mold that no one should have to live in.

"Victory isn't all it's cracked up to be," Madge states. "Look at Finnick Odair."

If there was ever a person that exemplified what the Capitol did to its Victors, it's Finnick Odair. Madge hasn't officially met him, but when she's gone with Mr. Abernathy to the hospital wing to get his medication, to hold off the symptoms of his withdrawal, she's seen him. He's a bit of a mess, not the shiny, smiling, handsome man she's watched on television for years.

Mr. Abernathy doesn't stop by his bed, just gives him a nod of acknowledgement before putting his head down and scurrying on.

"His girl is in the Capitol," he told Madge. "Annie Cresta. Another Victor. Remember her?"

Madge did. The sweet faced girl who'd gone mad in the Arena after her partner had been beheaded. She was the strongest swimmer, and that was the only reason she made it to Victory.

"There's no telling what they're doing to her," Mr. Abernathy had sighed.

"But she's mad," Madge quickly pointed out. "What good would it do to hurt her? They can't believe she had any part in this?"

He'd laughed, a rueful, cold chuckle. "Do you think that matters, Pearl?" He tugged at his collar, popped his neck. "They've been antsy to do away with her for years. Ever since she won."

"Why didn't they then?"

"Same reason they didn't kill me off," he tells her. "Some people are useful as examples."

That had confused Madge. Mr. Abernathy as an example of what happened when you didn't listen made sense, but Annie Cresta seemed beyond listening and reasoning. "What is she an example of?"

Mr. Abernathy had tipped his head forward, toward Finnick Odair. "She wasn't."

It had taken Madge a few hours of racking her brain to realize what he meant.

"The other Victors asked me to help them, during the Seventieth, to get the girl out, Cresta. I thought it was a big joke, you know? She was a disaster, a wreck. I thought it was going to be a slap in the face of those pigs. Giving them a mad Victor, one they couldn't, wouldn't want to, play with."

Birdy's words, they seem a lifetime ago, rattled around in Madge's head. A Victor they couldn't or wouldn't want to play with. A broken Victor.

That had apparently not been the case.

"They still wanted her, didn't they?" Madge finally asked Mr. Abernathy, as they sat up, neither able to sleep. It was a nightly occurrence.

"There's always someone." He stared at Madge's notes. "Always some sick bastard with a fetish."

"He saved her, didn't he?" It was the only explanation.

Mr. Abernathy sat the notes down, scrubbed his weathered hands over his face.

"That boy has a soft heart, always has, believe it or not." He closed his eyes. "When he realized that they were still planning on selling her off, he made a deal, took on more clients, he couldn't let them damage someone like that even more. He's the only person I know that would sacrifice himself like that for a girl he barely even knew."

A small smile found its way onto Madge's face. "He loves her now?"

Mr. Abernathy nods. "He loves her now. She knows what he is, knows what he's done, knows it all, and she loves him. I don't know how they came to it, but they love each other."

As much as Madge wants to know the love story of Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta, she knows she'll never ask. Some things deserve to remain private, especially to two people that have had so much privacy stolen from them.

Mr. Heavensbee nods, narrows his eyes a little more. He clearly hadn't expected Madge to know much, maybe anything, about Finnick Odair and his miserable life.

"I suppose you're right," he finally admits, a calculating little gleam in his eyes.

Taking a step back, Madge forces a pleasant smile for him. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. I'm expected and Mr. Abernathy worries if I'm late."

His eyebrows rise. "I'm sure he does."

Without waiting for a proper dismissal, Madge turns on her heels and runs.

#######

Madge accompanies Mr. Abernathy down to Special Defense, though not without a hiccup or two.

"You can't come in," one of the large men tells her, roughly shoving her back onto a bench to wait.

"She can too," Mr. Abernathy practically growls, grabbing Madge back up by the arm. "And you touch her again and I cut off your-"

"Haymitch!"

A man in a wheelchair, Madge recognizes him from the Games though his name escapes her, rolls into view down the hall and waves to them.

"Let him through," he shouts at the man.

"He's got a girl. She can't come," the man explains as Mr. Abernathy pushes past him, Madge in tow.

"She hardly looks like an assassin," the Victor laughs.

Madge frowns, uncertain if she should be offended at not looking like a threat or happy that she seems so utterly benign.

Either way, the man stops trying to remove her and lets them pass without further incident.

Mr. Abernathy reaches down and shakes the man's hand. "Good to see you, Beetee."

"Likewise, Haymitch," he grins. Taking off his glasses, he cleans them on his simple gray shirt before placing them back on his face and adjusting them. They remain a little askew. "And who is your lovely companion?"

Heat instantly floods Madge's face as she holds out her hand. "Madge Undersee."

For a second he stares at it, then gently takes her hand. "Beetee Latier."

"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Latier."

He smiles and his glasses slide a little further down his nose. "Pleasure is mine."

He takes them down the hall, into a room. It's filled with weapons, Madge spots a trident and a bow with several arrows. She doubts any of them are like the ones Gale and Katniss used back home.

The thing that draws Madge's attention, though, is a glass wall behind which is a meadow, complete with trees and tiny little hummingbirds. It's been so long since she's seen grass or plants that she presses her face to the glass.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Mr. Latier asks, his eyes following a butterfly from behind his glasses.

Madge nods.

"Get in, Pearl," Mr. Abernathy tells her, giving her a push toward the door leading in.

Glancing at Mr. Latier, who gestures for her to go, she opens the door and steps in.

It smells clean, fresh and cool and open, unlike the recycled air she's had to breathe during her stay in Thirteen. She kicks off her shoes and lets her toes wiggle in the grass. It's heaven.

"They study the hummingbirds," Mr. Latier explains. "The aerodynamics of them."

To Madge it makes no difference why it exists, only that it does. She hadn't realized until now how much she missed the outdoors.

After a few too short minutes, they exit the room and head down a hall.

They're stopped at a door by a group of men, all heavily armed and grumpy looking, though if Madge thinks if she were stuck guarding a door that no one seems to visit, judging by the vacant hall, she might be a little edgy too. The quiet is unsettling.

They check their arms, the ridiculous tattoos, then poke and prod them, let them through, only to repeat the process a minute later.

"What a waste of time," Mr. Abernathy grumbles as they make him take off his belt once more.

Finally, they're in the armory.

It's overwhelming. It smells of oil and paint and hums with the prospect of ending lives. At least to Madge. She hates it instantly.

Feeling small, she unconsciously latches on to Mr. Abernathy's sleeve, as if he'd be able to save her if the weapons came to life and attempted to kill her.

They come to a table and Mr. Latier tells them to stay put as he rolls away to retrieve something.

"Why do you need me?" Madge asks once he's out of earshot. "I'm just your glorified secretary."

"I want your opinion on something," he tells her. "Something for Katniss."

Her hand loosens on his sleeve and he must sense it because he tilts his head and peers down at her, cocking one of his eyebrows.

"I'm probably not the best person to help you with things for Katniss."

He turns, letting his sleeve slip from her grasp as he leans against the table. His gray eyes settle on her, study her for a moment, then he sighs.

"Aw, Pearl." He reaches out and pushes a lose strand of hair from her shoulder. "You're still my favorite girl, you know that, right?"

Madge snorts. "That isn't it."

He chuckles. "No?"

Her eyes stay down, focused on his shoes, he needs to have them shined. "No."

His hand reaches out, tips her chin up, and he smiles. "This about that damned cousin again?"

Is she that transparent? Madge shakes her head. "No."

Hand falling back, Mr. Abernathy taps his temple. "No use lying to me, sweetheart. I got eyes."

"Well then you'd better have them checked," Madge tells him, crossing her arms over her chest.

She starts to turn, head back out of the room and let him look at whatever Mr. Latier has for Katniss by himself, but he catches her by the wrist and pulls her into a hug.

Thick, calloused fingers weave through her hair, gently combing out nonexistent tangles as he rests his cheek against the top of her head. "He's no good, Pearl. Not nearly good enough for you."

It doesn't help, him telling her that Gale is somehow beneath her, but she appreciates the effort.

After a moment, he pulls back, cups her face in his worn hands and presses a kiss to her forehead.

"I thought I lost you, you know?" He tells her, still holding her face, studying her expressions. "I thought I'd gotten you killed."

"You didn't tell them to bomb us," she points out.

"I should've had that damned bird get you out sooner," he mutters, taking his hands back and running them over his face then up into his straggly hair. "Gotten you somewhere safer than this."

Madge almost tells him about Birdy wanting her and her mother to go to Ten, but gets cut off by Mr. Latier's return.

He has a box, somewhat narrow and long, that he deposits on the table and lifts the lid off.

Inside is a bow. It's beautiful, even to Madge who has very little knowledge of such things.

"They wanted something for the costume," Mr. Latier explains. "But I've made it functional as well."

Madge keeps her hands tucked to her stomach as she cranes over it, inspecting it with her uncritical eye as Mr. Latier explains it. Plain on the outside, sophisticated as a Capitol pen on the inside.

"I like it," Mr. Abernathy says, raising his eyebrow and looking to Madge. "What's your call, Pearl? Think she'll go for it, or too fancy?"

With a certain nod, Madge looks up at the men. "She'll love it."

#######

The next day Madge tumbles out of bed and another restless night's sleep and eats her dry breakfast with Mr. Abernathy before dropping off her mother at the kitchens.

They go over notes in one of the quiet rooms, Madge highlighting things she thinks are important and passing them to Mr. Abernathy for him to complain about before tossing them aside.

Abruptly, he stands, pops his back and gestures for Madge to get up. "Gotta get going. Plutarch'll have a cow if we're late."

Madge groans and looks at her wrist. Meeting with a lecherous old man isn't tattooed on her arm. She gives Mr. Abernathy her most pathetic look. "Do I have to go?"

He chuckles and wraps an arm around her shoulders, tugs her out the door. "Trust me, Pearl, you and me both'll want to see this."

#######

They twist and turn down the empty halls, their footsteps echoing off the metal. The ever present chill cuts through Madge's clothes, giving her goose bumps. She's about to ask Mr. Abernathy if they have time to stop and pick up yet another sweater for her from the apartment, despite being in a part of the underground she's never been before and surely miles from their little makeshift home, when he comes to a stop.

He takes a keycard from his pocket and cuts it through the reader, causing the door to swish open loudly.

There are only a few people, and much to Madge's relief, Mr. Heavensbee and his annoying secretary, Fulvia, are in the next room, though Madge can plainly see them.

It takes her a few seconds to realize what's going on. The soundstage, the people shouting out commands to the floor below, cut off from them by a thick panel of glass, the fake smoke…

"They're making a propo," Mr. Abernathy finally whispers, a smirk on his face.

Squinting, Madge steps closer to the glass, peers down and spots a girl. She looks confused, her posture is stiff, unnatural, and she's wearing so much makeup Madge feels suffocated on her behalf.

"It's Katniss."

Mr. Abernathy nods.

They watch as Mr. Heavensbee and Fulvia make adjustments, argue when people want to head out for dinner break, and then finally give Katniss her line.

"People of Panem," Madge reads off a card on the desk where the lighting director sits, "we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice."

It's the most ridiculously scripted thing she's ever read, and she used to watch stories from the Capitol with Mrs. Oberst.

Mr. Abernathy chuckles. "Disaster waiting to happen."

"Don't be mean," Madge hushes him. "It might go okay."

Even as she says it she knows she's lying. Katniss isn't the kind of person that can handle something as utterly dry as this. She isn't an actress.

They stand, watching and listening as Katniss is finally allowed to have her moment. Smoke is at optimal levels, the background noise is muted, and her eyes are smoky and dark. It's a vision.

It's a disaster.

The room goes dead silent after Katniss delivers the solitary line with about as much enthusiasm and charisma as a lump of coal.

Everyone is in shock, except for Mr. Abernathy, who's doubled over in laughter.

"You're terrible," Madge chastises him, covering her own mouth so that an accidental snort of laughter doesn't escape. It had been a little funny.

He manages to stumble over, to where one of the microphones to the soundstage is, pushes the girl sitting there out of the way, and presses his finger to the button to speak.

He contains his laughter just long enough to get out his opinion of the shoot.

"And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for their patience.

Madge is banned from meetings the next day.

"You can't kick her out," Mr. Abernathy growls, lowly, dangerously glaring back at a steely eyed President Coin. "I need her."

"Do you?" Although, Madge knows isn't a question, despite the inflection. Mr. Abernathy is more than capable of attending meetings on his own now; the worst of his withdrawal is past she thinks. If he's up to taunting Katniss over her pitiful propo then he's well enough to do his own listening and writing.

Whether he likes it or not.

Madge doesn't say it, but she's the smallest bit relieved. The meetings are tedious, and the more she knows of the inner workings of the rebellion the less she likes those running it. They're Capitol. Drab and gray, a backwards image, but Capitol.

As much as she'll miss hearing things firsthand, and using her own judgment to determine what something might or might not mean, she knows Mr. Abernathy will continue to use her as his sounding board. Her flow of information will change, but not stop.

Besides, the less proximity to Gale she has the better, especially if Katniss is going to be their vaunted Mockingjay.

"She can go back to the kitchens with her mother," Coin tells him, a chilly little smile toying at the edges of her lips.

Mr. Abernathy spends the better part of an hour yelling at Coin, ticking off reasons why he deserves to keep his assistant.

It's a shock to Madge's system, hearing him yell. Not that he's never been loud before, but he's normally not quite so angry when he is. She chalks it up to not having alcohol to even his nerves.

Despite his many points, recounted and explored endlessly, Coin still refuses.

"It's okay," Madge tells him when they finally exit the office. "I miss spending time with my mother."

So instead of being allowed to attend the brainstorming session ("Your input will only be redundant," Coin had told her), Madge is sent to the kitchens.

The afternoon is whiled away making gumdrops and orange slices, not nearly as sweet as the one's Madge remembers making with her Poppa, sugar is rationed like everything else, but good none the less.

She's settling back in nicely when her mother's happy humming stops, cuts the flow of the work to nothing.

"Hello Haymitch."

Madge looks up, wrinkling her nose and snorting. "Miss me already?"

He doesn't smile, not really, just watches her for a minute before crossing the small space and picking up one of the cooled orange slice candies and popping it into his mouth. "They're sending me out."

"Out?" Her mother echoes. "Out where?"

His eyes, gray and dark from sleeplessness, flick up, just enough for Madge to catch it.

Her shoulders slump. He's getting to go outside. "If I'd have made it one more day I could see the sun?"

Mr. Abernathy shakes his head. "You don't wanna see it like this, sweetheart."

He flops down on one of the creaky stools, it groans in protest, and explains to them, in a tone just above a whisper about the brainstorming session, about the plan, about going to Eight.

"That's dangerous!" Madge almost shouts. "You know how close they watch her. If they get even a scent that she's out where they can get to her they'll-"

"I know!" He snaps, the edginess from his fight with Coin still simmering at the top. Madge takes a step back. He wouldn't hurt her, she's certain of that, but he's still touchy from the lack of drink. When he realizes he's yelled at her, he runs his hand over his face, eyes her warily. "Sorry."

The sincerity in his voice, something so often hidden, makes it easier to forgive him. Maybe she was being too critical.

"She can't perform under their conditions," he explains. "This is the best we can do."

Madge feels her mother take a step back, turn and begin gathering up small handfuls of candies into a small paper sack. When it's full, she comes back, takes Mr. Abernathy's hand and gently places the parcel in his palm. She smiles brightly at him. "For luck."

#######

Madge keeps in mind never to let her mother give her candy for luck after what happens in Eight.

She's called down to the hospital wing, pulled from her duties of wrapping little candies for the school children, by a large man in clothes designating him as a hospital worker. White and stark and stiff.

"Magdalene Undersee?" He says, somewhat out of breath. He must've run.

She nods, an unpleasant gurgle rising in her stomach.

"Come with me," he tells her, gesturing. There's such an urgency in his voice, a grimness in his eyes, that Madge doesn't question him, just gets up and follows him as he leads her away from her little room. She doesn't even leave a note for her mother who's cleaning baking sheets with Josephette a few rooms away.

The hospital wing is drab and gray, just like everything else, smells of antiseptic and cold.

The man leads her past rows and rows of empty and occupied beds, through a set of curtains she knows are reserved for the most ill.

"Where's Mr. Abernathy?" She instantly asks, stopping before she's through the curtain. This has to be about him, he's the only person in her life unaccounted for at the moment that they would have any reason to fetch her for. A knot forms in her throat.

"Miss, come along," he tells her evenly. "You're his medical alert person."

Madge shakes her head. If she's going to have to identify a body she won't. She won't be the person to sign his death certificate, tell the world he's gone. She'd known the trip to Eight was a bad idea.

Tears start falling, hard and fast. Mr. Abernathy is dead. He was the only person left that cared, really, truly cared, about her and her mother, and he's dead.

Visions of her father fill her mind, burning up in the fire from the bombs. Her lungs tighten in her chest, as if the smoke is back, soaking into her skin and suffocating her from the inside out.

It's inexcusable. He wasn't well, not at all, and Coin shouldn't have sent him out without help. This is her fault. This is Madge's fault, she should've put up more of a fight to stick with him until he was completely better. This is Katniss' fault. If she'd have just done the damn propo well enough on the soundstage then they could've stayed underground, stayed safe…

She almost drops to the floor, guilt and memories too vivid to handle overwhelm her, but someone, she suspects the hospital orderly, catches her and holds her up as she sobs.

He begins combing his fingers through her hair, shushing her softly, and in a moment of clarity, Madge realizes this is a very bizarre thing for a stranger to do, even for a crying girl.

Almost leaping back, she falls into one of the little rolling table, sending the metallic tools and basin of rubbing alcohol to the floor with a deafening crash.

In front of her, battered and bloody, smelling of disaster and heat, is Gale.

He watches her, eyes reddened and tired, for several seconds before he speaks. "You okay?'

Madge doesn't answer, just stares at him, cataloging every scrape and nick in his skin, every tear in his clothes, all the singes…

This is Katniss fault, she thinks again. Katniss had got Mr. Abernathy killed and gotten Gale injured, Katniss and the idiots who think that the only way to win this rebellion is through the same ploys as the Capitol.

Before her anger can get the better of her, she knows deep down that she's being unfair and unreasonable, she flings herself back onto Gale, letting her sobs begin again as she awkwardly clings to him, assuring herself he's alive.

His breath, short little pants, ghosts over her scalp as he begins combing his fingers through the tangles her hairnet had left. "It's okay."

Her body shakes as she tries to tell him it isn't, it will never be again, but the words won't come.

Finally, the crying slows, the inevitable hiccups come, and Gale loosens his hold on her.

His hand, a bit dirty, black and brown and cut up, comes to her cheek and brushes the tears away with his knuckles and he gives her a slight smile. He straightens up, and gestures to the curtain. "Come on, I'll take you back to the asshole."

Madge's heart stops. "He's alive?"

Gale cuts her a look. "Of course he is. We couldn't get that lucky."

While Madge doesn't appreciate his jab at what she increasingly feels is her only friend in the dungeons of Thirteen, she doesn't say anything. Her voice has once again left her. Gale's presence has that affect on her it seems.

They weave through several 'critical' beds, set up and waiting for the next disaster, until they curve back, to the left, to a closed row of dingy white curtains.

"He's in there," Gale tells her. "Had a bit of a-I don't know what you call it-episode? Maybe? After Eight."

There's more to it, Madge imagines anyway, but she doesn't press, she's just grateful he's alive.

Pulling the cuff of her shirt down, Madge rubs her eyes, trying to erase the tear tracks from her cheeks. Mr. Abernathy has enough troubles without knowing she'd had a meltdown thinking he'd died.

Gale reaches out, pushes one of the wild strand of hair from her face. His expression tightens. "The kids miss you."

A sharp pain hits Madge in the guts, twists them up and tugs at them.

The kids miss her. Not Gale though.

She almost says 'they'll get over it', because they're young and the blessing of being young is forgetfulness, but she bites her tongue. He wouldn't appreciate her thoughts on the subject.

Besides, she knows it's not true. The moment Vick and Rory catch wind that she's no longer under lock and key, Mr. Abernathy's shadow, they'll be back in the kitchen begging for scraps and for her to come visit them.

Instead of saying anything, she just nods.

"If it's me…" he rubs his hand over his face, lets out a long sigh. "If you don't want to see me-"

Madge's head shakes before he's even finished.

"I-It's just-"She tries to get her mouth and mind in agreement, to tell him that she's trying to preserve what little bit of her heart she has left. She's trying to be graceful, bow out for Katniss' sake, even if at the moment she can't spare a kind thought for her friend, but it's an impossible task with him standing in front of her, the faint smell of smoke wafting off his clothes and a five o'clock shadow forming on his cheeks.

She's weak and she knows it.

"It isn't you," she finally manages. Even though, really, it is, just probably not how he imagines it.

Gale's eyes cut away, and she can tell he's heard something behind him. Years of hunting has made his hearing much sharper than hers.

His jaw tightens and his breathing catches, and suddenly, horribly, Madge knows just what he's listening for.

Katniss.

It's always Katniss.

Mentally, Madge slaps herself. Katniss is probably hurt, possibly badly. This is no time for petty jealousy. There are more important things happening than Madge's crumbling heart.

Squashing down her anger, her sullenness, Madge reaches out for the curtain and gives Gale a tight little smile.

She steps through the curtain, letting it fall closed behind her with a light rustle, without a goodbye.

#######

It's dark behind the curtain, and she sees Mr. Abernathy curled on his side, his back to her as she takes the few steps to the bed.

"Mr. Abernathy?"

He stirs, but just a little, tilts his head around and squints into the artificial twilight of the room.

"Madge?"

It's odd, hearing her name from him. She's always 'Pearl' or 'sweetheart' or 'kid', never 'Madge'.

He flops over, rattling the bed as he does, tosses and grumbles until he's on his back and looking at her. His hand shakes as he reaches out for her.

Uncertainly, Madge takes his hand, steadies it until he pulls it back to his face and presses a scratchy kiss to it. "Madge."

"Are you drunk?" She finally asks, wondering where he'd gotten a hold of anything. They're tight with even the rubbing alcohol.

A lazy grin forms on his scraggy face as he stares at her. "Gave me a sedative. Just as good."

"Why?" It seems like a backward step at this point.

He makes a harsh noise, somewhere between a laugh and a snarl, and squeezes her hand.

"Damned girl went running into the fight. Threw her earpiece and ignored me," he tells her, a deep scowl forming on his face. Clearly they didn't give him enough sedative.

Instead of telling him he ought to be used to it by now, Katniss has surely disobeyed him before, it would be a shock if she hadn't, Madge just leans in and presses a kiss to his temple. He doesn't need to be grumbled at, he needs comfort. That's why he picked her to be alerted for his admission. Her mother would weep and be a general nuisance, but Madge has dealt with illness her whole life. She knows what to do for a person who isn't feeling well.

With a small sigh, Madge gives his hand a squeeze back and smiles.

#######

It takes until well after midnight to convince the doctor that Madge knows how to take care of the still tipsy Mr. Abernathy.

"I know what to do," she tells him and the nurse, a mousy headed girl with a button nose, for what feels like the thousandth time as she wheels Mr. Abernathy between the rows of beds.

"Yes but-"

"I'm not staying," Mr. Abernathy barks at them, causing several nurses to loudly shush him.

Finally, they make their escape, down the winding halls and down the elevator, to the rows of identical doors.

When the door opens, swishes loudly, Madge is greeted by her mother, sitting on the floor, sobbing and clutching one of the thin, gray blankets to her chest.

She looks up, eyes red rimmed and puffy, nose running. "Madge?"

Before Madge can process what she's seeing, remember that she'd left her mother without an explanation, she's crushed in a hug, her sleeve getting soaked with tears and snot as her mother clutches her to her chest.

"D-didn't know where y-y-you went-t-t," she cries. "Th-thought they'd st-s-stolen you!"

"It's okay," Madge tries to comfort her, pats down her fly-away hair as it floats wildly around her head. "I'm alright."

Her mother pulls back, still sniffling and crying, takes Madge's face in her hands and inspects her for injury. Then, out the corner of her eyes, she spots Mr. Abernathy.

Lip quivering, her sobs rekindle as she covers her mouth and blubbers unintelligibly.

With a little effort, Mr. Abernathy pushes himself up, causing the wheelchair to creak and groan, straightens himself out and reaches out. He pulls Madge by the shoulder to him and carefully shifts her mother's sobbing frame from Madge to himself.

"Shush, 'Tilda," he whispers, gently patting her back. "Everyone's okay."

It takes nearly an hour before she calms enough for Madge to explain what had happened.

When the small clock on the wall signals two in the morning, Madge's mother finally drifts off, still sniffling occasionally, on Madge's shoulder as the three of them sit on the uncomfortable little sofa.

Mr. Abernathy sits opposite Madge, gently twirling a loose strand of her mother's pale hair between his dark fingers.

Madge watches, contemplates telling him to stop, but when she spots the relaxed expression on his face, she stops herself. He isn't hurting anything.

Slowly, her own eyes drift shut.

She wakes a few hours later, tucked into the bed with her mother curled into her side.

Mr. Abernathy is gone. His wheelchair is in the hallway, being used in a game by the children.

#######

The propo is powerful, at least from what Madge is told by the few kitchen staff that are released to go to the first viewing.

A remembrance. Different from the fiery battle cry they'd created from the disaster in Eight.

"Her boyfriend is quite the looker," Constance tells them, her thick eyebrows arching as she remembers Gale.

Madge almost snaps and tells them that Gale isn't Katniss' boyfriend, but there isn't much point in it. He's at her side constantly, fawning over her, protecting her, of course they think he's her boyfriend.

"Pity about Peeta though," Josephette sighs, mashing her gums together in dismay. "They were such a charming couple."

It reminds Madge of Mrs. Oberst gossiping with her friends, Mrs. Mellark and the cobbler's wife, about the Capitol programs. Who was with who, and who had been with who, and who did they expect to couple off next or be in the next love-triangle.

It's sickening, even if old Josephette and Constance are a far cry from Madge's old housekeeper.

Katniss and Peeta and Gale are real people. This isn't some stupid program, scripted to the moment and without any real emotional fallout. This is real life.

Head swimming, Madge sloshes water around in the enormous sink she's washing the flat sheets in, loudly enough to drown out the chatter of the kitchen staff behind her.

#######

Vick and Rory catch her as she slinks off to the apartment, dishpan hands in the pockets of her pillowcase dress.

"Do you want to come play poker?" Rory asks, wagging his eyebrows.

Madge appreciates their efforts, they're probably not supposed to be out at this time, but she shakes her head. "I need to get home to my mother. She got a headache earlier."

They look disappointed, but understanding.

Vick links his arm with hers and Rory bounces as he walks backward, telling Madge about their classes as they escort her home.

"-and they teach us about the bombing, and nuclear power-" Vick rattles off.

"Nothing about coal though," Rory adds with a roll of his eyes.

"If you'd like I can recite my seventh grade paper over ancient mining techniques for you," Madge offers, laughing when Rory gags.

They squeeze through the other second and third shifters, coming and going to their appointed posts, until they reach the apartment and Madge slides her card.

The boys follow her in, inspecting the inside with wide, disappointed eyes.

"I thought it would be bigger," Vick finally says.

"I thought it would be nicer," Rory adds. "I mean, you have Haymitch. We just have Gale."

Madge shrugs. "I don't think they have a concept of that kind of hierarchy here."

She's about to offer them a cup of tea, they've already broken the rules, she might as well reward them for their efforts, when the door to the bedroom opens and Mr. Abernathy quietly pads out. He eyes the boys for a second, as though he isn't sure what he's seeing, then presses his finger to his lips before shutting the door behind him.

"'Tilda's sleeping," he explains. A scowl forms on his face. "They wouldn't give us anything for her headache so I just made her some tea. Just got her to settle down."

Madge gives him a grateful smile. Her mother has been so well lately that she'd almost forgotten how bad she could be. It's like dealing with an infant really.

Giving the boys an apologetic look, Madge gestures to the exit. There'll be no visiting tonight.

"I hope your mom feels better soon," Vick tells her as he hugs her. It lasts a little too long and she has to break it with a cough.

Rory holds open his arms. Madge just shakes her head.

"Fine," he grumbles.

Vick widens his eyes, juts his lip out just enough to not seem childish. "Will you sit with us for dinner tomorrow?"

It breaks her heart to tell him no, but there's no way she can. It's bad enough seeing them when they sneak off and find her, but actually inviting her source of pain into her life is another story completely. She shakes her head and Vick deflates.

"You can't say no forever," he tells her.

Madge just smiles. She most certainly can and she most certainly will.

When she steps back into the apartment Mr. Abernathy is back on the couch, a glass of water rolling between his hands. He looks up, worry etched into his features, and Madge's stomach sinks.

"What's happened?"

#######

It isn't a surprise that Peeta is being used to jab back at the Rebels and their propos with Katniss. It's brilliant really. Fire with fire.

It's also brilliant that they managed to cut the broadcast to most of Thirteen. Peeta's first propo had caused such a stir, cutting his audience in Thirteen down significantly had spared him further bad press. There were still people muttering about him being a traitor from the last one.

"Did Katniss see?" She asks without thinking.

He shrugs, rubs his hand over his eyes. "Dunno. Plutarch said she didn't, said the television was off when he got to the hospital wing, but…"

Madge nods, she understands. Even if Katniss had seen she doubts she'd tell the people in charge. They're untrustworthy and secretive, surely Katniss would've already sensed that?

A chill runs up her spine. Maybe Katniss doesn't realize how shifty, how self-preserving Plutarch Heavensbee and his ilk are. It makes the air in Madge's lungs sting. She's clever, she should've made more of an effort to help Katniss, forced her way into her new life instead of letting herself be ignored.

It's past now, no changing it, and so Madge just weaves her fingers together into a painful knot.

"They're going to go to Twelve tomorrow," Mr. Abernathy tells her, eyeing his glass. Probably imagining it filled with white liquor. "I'm not going. Not without a drink."

Madge snorts even though, really, it isn't funny.

A ghost of a smile flickers on Mr. Abernathy's face and he pats her knee.

#######

Mr. Abernathy spends the day in the kitchen with Madge and her mother.

Sometimes he helps, occasionally dropping blobs of candy onto the sheets for them, other times eating their efforts up before they can even properly set, but mostly, he just watches them, content to doze or make little comments as the day rolls by.

Vick and Rory make their appearance, helping Mr. Abernathy eat a dozen lemon drops before Madge finally shoos them out.

The day is so pleasant, and so is the next, that she doesn't expect the evening. It blindsides her.

She's selected, much to her disappointment, to be one of the second shifters to be allowed to leave for the viewing of the newest propo. She wishes she weren't.

Peeta is a mess, not like her mother, always in a sweetly pleasant fog, but a terrified, glossy eyed wreck.

As the footage of Katniss in Twelve is interspersed with Peeta, he grows increasingly agitated, slips further from sanity.

The static and the noise of the crowd, the back and forth make Madge's head spin and her stomach turn. She starts to back out of the room before the battle even ends.

Then she hears it.

"Dead by morning!"

Madge spins so quickly on the heels of her plain little shoes she almost ends up on the ground. The screen flashes back and forth, between a still of Katniss and Peeta, being roughed up, tossed to the ground.

He screams in pain, Madge's stomach clenches up.

Then his blood splatters on the pristine tile and the screen goes dark.

#######

It takes only a few minutes for the alarms to sound, a painful siren that silences every grumble and gasp.

Before they can begin to force them down, to the lower levels of the compound, Madge runs back toward the kitchens. She has to get to her mother.

Skidding on the freshly cleaned floors of the cafeteria, Madge barely keeps herself upright as she rushes through the slowly exiting kitchen staff.

She finds her mother hiding under the long metallic table they roll their sheets of candy out on, curled up in a ball, her fingers plugged into her ears, humming.

"Mom," Madge crawls under the table, tries to pry her mother's chin from her chest. "Momma, please!"

She tugs on her, pulls her from the underside of the table, still curled in on herself.

"Momma, please!"

Her mother just shakes her head, the sirens are too much for her.

The low rumble of humanity is fading, Madge can't hear the dull footsteps anymore. They're alone. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and no one is going to care because Madge isn't important and neither is her mad mother.

Tears start leaking out the corners of Madge's eyes as she collapses beside her mother. There's no point in trying anymore.

Then a cool hand brushes against her cheek, pushes tear soaked hair from her face.

Looking up, Madge sees her mother, face still screwed up in pain, but looking anxiously at the door. "Come, love."

She stands, shaking, and holds out her hand to Madge.

Before she can collapse again, curl up into a ball and dissolve in front of Madge's eyes, Madge scrambles up, grabs her hand and begins pulling her out of the room, through the kitchen and down the now vacant halls.

It's eerie. Thirteen is never empty, not like this. It's dead, a tomb.

There are flashing lights, directing them downward. The noise, ceaseless and grating, dulls as they go lower until it's almost gone, or maybe Madge's ears just grow too used to it.

As they turn a corner Madge sees a set of doors beginning to close, shut them out and seal their fate.

"Stop! We're coming!" She shouts, half dragging her exhausted mother.

They just barely make the cut off.

"Lucky pair," the man tells them as he directs them, points his stubby finger into the dim of the lower level. "Go check yourselves."

Her mother clinging to her, Madge drags her to the check in point and scans their arms. Once they're accounted for, they follow the cranky man directing the late comers to their temporary shelter.

She's still squinting into the yellow lighting, through the milling people chatting and gossiping, when someone grabs her from behind.

"Where the hell have you two been?"

Mr. Abernathy's face is screwed up, as though he might shout some more or burst into tears. He may do both.

"Oh, Haymitch, make them stop that awful racket," her mother pleads, her hands pressing over her ears and her eyes pressed painfully shut.

His face drops as he watches tears start, or maybe continue, Madge isn't sure, to slide down her mother's face. He looks around for a second, then jerks his head toward what looks to be a hole in the wall. "Come on."

Once they're in, he pulls the little door shut and yanks a single chain, casting the room in yet more yellow light from a naked bulb. He forces up a smile as Madge sets her mother on the lower bunk and smoothes her hair. "Better, sweetheart?"

Weakly, her mother sniffles and makes a soft noise. "Better."

He stands across from them, looking down at them, for several seconds, then the sirens really do stop.

It's an unnatural feeling, like the moments right before a rainstorm. They're in a limbo, expectant and uncertain of what exactly they're about to receive. A gentle shower or a downpour.

Then it begins.

It shakes them, rattles them right down to their bones.

Madge's mother curls up again, pulls Madge with her and huddles against the back wall of their temporary shelter.

Madge closes her eyes and holds her mother tightly, trying to sooth her, but the lights flicker, on and off, on and off, before Mr. Abernathy gets frustrated and gives the chain a pull, plunging them into darkness.

The cot shifts, and Madge can almost make out his silhouette with the sliver of light from under the door.

"It's gonna be okay," he tells them as the earth seems to shudder around them.

Blinking into the darkness, Madge wonders if this is what life was like for Gale in the mines. A deep, dark hole of uncertainty.

It isn't, she knows that. Thirteen's bunker is much safer, much more stable than any mine in Twelve, but the idea is the same. A hole in the ground, tunnels and shafts deep into the earth.

A tomb.

When the shaking ceases and Coin makes an announcement, a grim almost thank you to Peeta and that more bombs are likely to come, Madge sits up. Her mother has cried herself to sleep.

She doesn't know why she says it, but the words slip out anyway. "I hope Gale is okay."

Despite the dark, she catches Mr. Abernathy's arched eyebrows and downturned mouth.

"Because of the mines," she covers. "It's like the mines. His dad died in a mine collapse and-"

He shakes his head and sighs. "Pearl, you need to get that cousin out of your head. He's no good for you."

"I'm-He's not in my head," she counters a bit weakly.

"Is so," he grins.

"You're infuriating." No wonder Katniss-

Madge clamps down on the thought. She doesn't want to think about Katniss or Gale or anyone anymore.

She lets her eyes wander so they can adjust properly to the dark. As she takes in the room, she cringes. There's a bunk above them, she's making Mr. Abernathy take that one, and not much else. A little sigh escapes her lips.

"Do you think you'd've liked being a miner?" she suddenly asks. It's more to get his mind and hers off Gale than because she's really put any thought into the question.

"No," he answers flatly.

Madge tries to imagine Mr. Abernathy, dressed in a miner's uniform, grumbling through the Seam to the mines. He might've been Gale's foreman. She snorts. They would've killed one another.

"That funny, Pearl?"

She grins, even though he can't see her. "Yeah."

Her mind wanders and she pictures him with a wife, dark-haired and gray-eyed, and maybe a kid or two, working for a living instead of drinking his days away. It makes her grin widen.

"What?" He asks, his eyes apparently used to the dark by now.

"Trying to picture you with a kid," she answers.

He scowls at that. "Why's that so funny?"

Madge shrugs. "Just is."

Her image of Mr. Abernathy's imaginary children is suddenly replaced with one of Peeta, sweet, wonderful Peeta, terrified and beaten, and she tries to blink the image away.

Mr. Abernathy has no one, except for maybe Madge and her mother, Katniss and Peeta-

Crawling over her mother, Madge settles herself next to him and wraps her arm in his, letting her head come to a rest against his shoulder.

Peeta is his kid, she'd said as much to him back before the Quarter Quell. He's Mr. Abernathy's kid and they're both hurting.

"They won't kill Peeta," she whispers. "They need him."

They need leverage against Katniss. Until she's gone, Peeta will live.

"I hope you're right, Pearl," he sighs. "I hope you're right."

She hopes she is too..


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for all the help.

Madge spends the long days in the pits of Thirteen soothing her mother, brushing her hair and humming lullabies to her until she drifts into restless sleeps.

Mr. Abernathy comes and goes.

He looks exhausted and Madge has to remind him to take the medication that steadies his nerves.

"Damn pills," he mutters as he throws a pair into his mouth.

Madge narrows her eyes. "Well if you'd've laid off the damn drink you wouldn't need them."

His lips twitch up. "Language, Pearl."

He doesn't actually care if she curses, in fact she half thinks he'd be pleased if she dissolved into a fit of swears and screams.

"You're too…" He'd frowned on their first evening and lifted his hand in the air, held it flat and steady in front of him. "You need to uncoil, kid."

She'd shaken her head and focused on the book he'd weaseled from wherever Thirteen kept them hidden. The last thing she needed to do was uncoil. Thinking wasn't good for her she decided.

When Mr. Abernathy and her mother both settle down, on the second night, drop off into exhaustion, Madge finally ventures out.

She's been cloistered for so long that she hovers near the edges of the halls, ghosting her way through the crush of humanity just to say she'd done something more than sit in her hole in the wall for days on end.

"Madge?" Vick appears, seemingly out of nowhere. He's paler than he had been only a few days before, as though the further they're pushed into the earth the more warm tones are evaporated from his skin.

He flings himself at her, hugs her tightly, and then pulls back, grinning.

"We haven't seen you," he says, a hint of accusation in his tone. "Are you hiding again?"

Despite herself, Madge's lips quirk up at the edges. "No, Vick. My mom hasn't been well. I've been staying with her."

For a moment he stares at her, narrow eyes examining her for insincerity. When he seemingly finds none, his smile returns.

They walk for several hours, around the edges of the underground that they're trapped in, Vick telling Madge about the 'Adventures of the Hawthorne Family'.

Posy had lost a tooth, she'd been working on it when last they spoke. Vick had passed his spelling test, one he'd been obsessing over for the past week. Rory had gotten detention, though he's doubtful the teacher will enforce the punishment.

"He was supposed to do it the past two days," Vick explains. "So Rory thinks that gets him out of it."

"I doubt that."

"Me too," Vick quickly agrees.

They wander back toward the area where food is dispensed, then to where Madge had dropped off a load of laundry the evening before, until they come around a corner.

It's loud, people are laughing and carrying on, some sitting on the cold, hard floor, and others are standing, pointing and laughing at something across the room.

After a minute of staring, Vick sighs.

"Crazy cat."

Madge's nose wrinkles up. "What?"

She must not have heard him right.

His gray eyes drag away from the spectacle and over to Madge. "Buttercup, Prim's cat, you know? Katniss has a flashlight and she has him chase the light." He gestures with his head. "Crazy cat."

Though she doesn't really see the appeal of torturing the poor cat with a flashlight, Madge just nods. The people of Thirteen must be more starved for entertainment than she realized.

"Why aren't you watching?" Madge finally asks after watching a few more minutes of the crowd laughing over whatever Buttercup was doing just beyond Madge's view.

Vick shrugs. "Gets boring after a while."

Madge nods then looks around and spies one of the simple clocks high on the walls. It's nearly eleven. She gives Vick an apologetic smile.

"Guess you'll have to be bored then. I have to head back."

He grabs her hand. "I'll walk you back."

She shakes her head. "No-"

"Aw, come on." He grabs her hand and tugs her back in the direction they'd come. "I know all the shortcuts. Just tell me the compartment number."

Reluctantly, Madge finally tells him the temporary number and lets him stealthily pull her through the labyrinth, until they're finally back in front of her compartment. It had been faster.

As she's about to tell him thank you and goodbye, he throws his arms around her again. "Will you come tomorrow for dinner?"

According to Mr. Abernathy during one of the endless meetings during the day, President Coin had mentioned the possibility of leaving the deep bunkers if it stayed 'quiet' for the next twenty-four hours. Since Madge hasn't heard more than the faint rumble of carts and equipment being moved along the corridors, she thinks by morning they'll be sent back to their compartments-or at least what's left of them.

With that in mind, she decides to play her odds, even if they've never been much in her favor. Either she'll have an awkward dinner with the Hawthornes or she'll escape upstairs and pretend to have forgotten in the ruckus.

"Fine," she tells him, causing a smile to break out on his face and his eyes to light up.

"Really?" He asks suddenly, an air of suspicion overtaking his features. "That was easy."

She shrugs and gently pushes his arms from her waist. "I know when I'm beat."

When a small explosion rocks the underground in the very small hours of the morning, sending her mother into a fit, Madge sighs.

Damn odds.

#######

The next evening, Mr. Abernathy comes back and flops into the lone chair in the compartment, one he'd 'liberated' from one of the conference rooms after his meeting. Madge didn't bother asking him how he'd done it. She wanted some plausible deniability for at least one thing.

She tells him about her mother and hers day. Madge they'd finished off the book he'd given them, written down a few more candy recipes that her mother had finally remembered, and managed to get in a two hour nap. Very eventful.

"I'm going out to dinner," she tells him as offhandedly as she can, hoping he won't question it too much.

One of his graying eyebrows quirks up and he slowly opens his increasingly dark eyes a fraction. "What?"

"Dinner, you know, the last meal of the day." She keeps her back to him as she fiddles with a loose thread on her dress, trying to pull it off without unraveling the edge more.

"With who?" He sits forward, elbows to knees, eyes completely open and focused on her as she turns to face him.

As much as she'd like to outright lie, it would be so much easier than telling him the truth and hearing another stricture on Gale-even if he isn't the sole host of the meal-she knows he'll sense it. He knows her a little too well.

"Vick," she offers. It's the truth after all.

His hands go to his face, fingers pressing to his eyes as he groans. "Pearl…"

"It's a family dinner," she explains, though she isn't sure why. She doesn't owe him an explanation. After all, Katniss is the same age as her and she isn't being lectured on her friendships by him. Madge deserves to be treated like an adult as much as Katniss does.

Hands dropping from his face, his dark rimmed eyes settle on her sadly. "Sweetheart, don't do this."

Taking the few short strides across the room, Madge fixes a calm smile on her face and leans down, pressing a quick kiss to the top of his head. "My mother is okay with it."

And she's the only person left that Madge really feels she needs to answer to. Besides, her father was always lenient with her on how she spent her time. A pain shoots through her chest at the flash of a memory, her father's smiling face, and she quickly squelches it. The time for mourning has passed, even if she feels she had largely missed it by necessity, and causing herself unnecessary pain is unproductive.

Mr. Abernathy shoots her mother's softly sleeping form an irritable look, but says nothing.

With that and a promise to be home before ten, Madge heads out.

The corridor is more crowded, people out chatting, heading to the cantina to pick up their food before settling down either with friends of family for the final meal of the day. It's a bit suffocating to Madge after days of solitude and the evening before being so thinly populated. By the time she reaches the Hawthornes' temporary compartment she's heartily regretting her hasty gamble.

"Madge!" Vick launches himself at her, his ear pressing into her chest.

Awkwardly, she pats his back before unwinding himself from around her.

"He wasn't lying then," Rory says as he pops up behind her, his tray balanced on one hand.

Mrs. Hawthorne comes up behind him, her tray laden with both her own food and what Madge assumes is Posy's. She smiles at Madge before giving Rory a sharp look. "Both hands, Rory. You drop it and they won't give you more."

Vick grabs her by the hand and starts to pull her from the compartment, toward the cantina. "Come on. You can come with me to get our trays."

Without waiting for his mother's approval, Vick drags Madge off through the dinnertime crowds.

They've just reached the queue, Vick is asking Madge what dessert she's going to try, the creamy white or the pale gray pudding, when a few people back Madge hears a deep, rumbling voice. She doesn't even have to turn to know who it is.

Vick starts chewing his lip, his wide eyes flashing back and forth between Madge and where his brother is standing several people behind them. Madge's face must reflect her inching anxiety.

"If you want to go home you can," he finally says, his voice a defeated little whisper.

He looks so pitiful, so opposite of what he'd been only minutes before and Madge hates herself for it. It isn't his fault she's an emotional mess around his brother. Vick is still her friend and she owes it to him to pull herself together, not let what she does and who she spends time with be dictated by Gale.

"I said I'd have dinner with you and I am."

It takes a minute, but his little grin creeps back onto his face.

#######

Gale doesn't reach them before they make it through the line. That's the one good thing about Thirteen, despite the lines, they're efficient.

They wiggle through the crowds again, Madge snorting with laughter as Vick uses his tray to plow through even the smallest space and shouting 'excuse me!' over his shoulder at the bewildered people in his wake. It takes them half as long as Madge had imagined it would simply because of his pushiness.

She settles down between Vick and Rory, letting them both fill her in on their classes more thoroughly and complain about their itchy uniforms and the sleeping arrangements.

"Rory always kicks me in the head," Vick tells her.

"You won't stay on your side of the pallet," Rory shoots back.

"Nu-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Uh-uh-"

"Boys," their mother cuts them off and gives Madge an apologetic smile. "I'm sure Madge would rather not sit through one of your fights."

"Which is why I ate somewhere else," a deep voice tells them from the entry way of the little compartment.

Gale steps through the frame, his eyes fixed on his brothers.

Both Rory and Vick exchange a quick glance, share a silent conversation that Madge wishes she were privy too, before turning their attention back to their food.

"Where did you eat?" His mother asks as she wipes Posy's face with a rag.

Gale's stormy eyes flicker to Madge for less than a second then back to his mother. He shrugs. "The Everdeens."

Madge focuses her energy on keeping her expression neutral. What Gale does or doesn't do is none of her concern and neither is who he does it with.

She takes a small bite of her mush and swallows it down. It settles like a stone in her stomach.

He drops down into the space beside his mother, scooping a giggling Posy into his lap and tickles her before looking back up.

Vick and Rory are being suspiciously quiet now, and Madge isn't sure if it's Gale's presence alone or the combination of the company that's stolen their voices. Despite a lifetime of keeping quiet, the unnaturalness of it around the Hawthornes' makes her uncomfortable.

She clears her throat. "So, Vick, have you started studying for the next spelling test yet?"

It takes a minute, but Vick slowly starts talking again, as does Rory, though the wild edge of their voices are muted.

When Posy starts getting fussy, rubbing her eyes and whining for Gale to rock her, Madge decides it's time to go.

"I'll walk you," Vick scrambles up.

"Me too," Rory adds, hitting his empty bowl with his increasingly clumsy feet.

Madge shakes her head. "I know the way. This isn't Twelve."

"But it's still the same people," Gale grumbles, handing Posy off to his mother despite her protests.

"She walked here by herself," Posy mumbles, her eyes already too heavy to open. "You can't walk yourself, Madge?"

She's small and tired and wants her brother, the closest thing to a father she's ever known, to stay with her. Madge can sympathize with it. She increasingly wants to do nothing more than curl up beside her mother and sleep the day away, safe and sound and loved.

"Of course I can, Posy," Madge assures her. "Your brothers are just being silly."

With that she quickly steps away from Vick and Rory, past Gale and to the door.

"I'll see you all later."

Before she's even down the hall, though, she hears the soft scuffing of shoes against the cold floors coming up behind her.

"Madge."

Despite wanting to ignore him, there's not much of an excuse to. The halls are quiet and calm, Gale's deep voice bounces off the walls, magnifying it.

Stopping, Madge closes her eyes and steels herself for something unpleasant.

She turns on her heels and forces her face to stay neutral.

"I'm walking you home," Gale tells her, taking her by the elbow and tugging her along.

"Let go," Madge snaps as she jerks her arms from his grip.

He glares at her, his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth downturned. "What's your problem?"

His voice is so harsh, low and dangerous, that Madge takes a step back. She swallows down the sudden flare of fear rising from her stomach. "I don't appreciate being manhandled."

She can almost hear his teeth grinding as he turns his head and glares at the wall to their right.

Finally, he turns his stormy eyes back on her. "Fine, sorry."

Madge simply nods, rubs her elbow gently.

After a standstill, a stretch of cold quiet, Madge tries to step past him, hoping he'll let her go rather than risk a scene.

"Madge." He stops her, his hand pressing to her stomach to keep her from taking another step. "I'm sorry."

She tilts her head, frowns at him. "I heard you the first time."

He chuckles, a low rumble, and it warms her from the inside out.

He gives her a little grin. "I meant about everything else."

Madge sighs. He probably doesn't even know the scope of her bruised feelings, and if he had any inkling of her jealousy over Katniss he'd probably go back to hating her more than he had before, when they'd been nothing but seller and buyer on her back porch. Gale is apologizing for something that isn't even his fault. She's done all this to herself.

"There's nothing to be sorry about." She steps back, away from his hand that's burning against her stomach. "Thing have changed. It happens."

It had happened before, that's how they'd been able to form their friendship in the first place. This was simply the natural death of something that had been forged in dire times.

"Yeah," he sighs. "But you don't have to avoid me."

"I'm no-"

He stops her protest with an arched eyebrow.

She can't help herself, she smiles. "Fine. I'm avoiding you."

"Why?" A little crease forms between his eyes. "What did I do?"

Madge closes her eyes, tight enough that she sees stars behind them as she tries to form her thoughts into words.

"I-You didn't do anything, Gale," she finally answers letting out a breath she didn't even realize she'd been holding.

"Then why do you act like I've got a plague every time you see me?" He crosses his arm over his chest, his stare set on her, awaiting what he must expect to be either the stupidest or most profound answer he'll ever hear.

Unconsciously, Madge's fingers wind together at her waist, knot up as she considers her options.

She could lie, concoct a story so elaborate he'll never be able to disprove it. Slink away to the dark corners and beg for a job that will hide her from the world until the rebellion ends and she can vanish into the thin air like the spirit she so often pretended to be when she was young and being ignored.

Or she could tell the truth.

When she peeks up through her bangs and sees Gale's stormy eyes still fixed on her, she can't bring herself to hide behind a lie.

So many things in her life have been stripped away, what's one more?

She takes a deep breath, lets it shudder in her chest as she prepares herself for disappointment.

"Because I…" She keeps her eyes down, focused on his feet, the perfectly shined leather of his boots as she wrings her hands tighter. "Because I like you Gale."

The air seems to still around them, settles and cools, sucks the last traces of noise from the emptying halls away from them.

As much as she wants to look up, she can't make herself. She doesn't think she can handle to look of pity she knows is there.

Finally, she hears him sigh, feels the warmth of his breath breeze across her shoulder and ruffle her hair. Against her better judgment, she lets her eyes trail up his legs, to his stomach, then shoulders.

He's uncrossed his arms, has on hand at the back of his head, tugging at his hair, and the other at hip. His eyes are still locked on her though. She drops her gaze back to his feet.

"Madge…"

It's so faint she almost misses it, almost thinks she imagined him saying it, but when his hand, warm and rough and calloused, comes to a rest against her cheek she knows she hadn't.

His thumb brushes under her eye, and she cringes when she feels something wet smear under his touch.

She's crying again. Why does she always have to cry?

"Madge I-you know I like you too," he starts, slowly. Her heart stops, because she knows what's coming next. "But Katniss…"

He trails off.

Nodding, Madge reaches up and nudges his hand away, using the back of her own to swat away anymore traitorous tears that might've escaped in her weakness.

"I know," she laughs, though she doesn't even know why, it's not funny in the least. "I know. I'm just stupid."

"Madge-"

She takes a step back, shaking her head, her chin is quivering and she doesn't want to break in front of him. This is stupid to cry over. There are more important things to cry over. This is why she needs to stay away, it hurts too much.

"Just forget it, alright," she barely manages to get out, her voice cracking. "That's why I've been staying away. You're Katniss'. You and your whole family are hers and I'm trying to be gracious. I'm backing out. I'm not adding another complication to any of your lives."

Not that she could if she wanted to. Gale's been in love with Katniss forever as far as Madge is concerned, anything he might feel for her, any fledgling affection he might've developed during the course of the last year, is a sickly weed compared to what he's harbored for Katniss.

He reaches for her again, his fingers just barely graze the fabric of her sleeve before she backs up again, just out of his grasp.

"This-I'm being stupid," she hears her voice rising but she can't stop it. "It's probably just-everything's happened so fast and-just-" she tugs the wrist of her pillowcase dress over her hand and uses it to rub her face, soaking the material. "It's better if I stay away."

She looks around, certain they're causing a scene, but the hall is largely empty.

Taking one last shuddering breath, she makes herself to look at him, forces a smile.

"I'll be alright. Don't worry about me." No one ever has. "'Bye, Gale."

Before he can stop her she turns and runs, down the maze of corridors, past the stragglers heading back to their compartments after dinner, until she stumbles, trips and lands on her knees.

Quietly she curses herself, presses her stinging palms against the cold floor and lets the tears roll down her cheeks. They drip down, some off the edge of her nose, others her chin and jaw, splattering silently on the frigid floor.

"Are you okay?"

Rubbing the tears away and wiping her disgustingly runny nose on her already soggy sleeve, Madge nods. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The person hovers beside her for a minute, blocking out what little light the dimmed sconces of evening provide, before dropping down beside her.

"I'm not sure about here, but where I'm from, people in your state aren't usually 'fine'."

Sitting back on her heals, Madge keeps her wet eyes down, away from the stranger that's seen her in shambles, then rubs her clean sleeve over her face. She turns to the person, one of her very best hostess smiles fixed firmly in place. "See? Fine."

They stare at each other for a few seconds before Madge almost lets her well practiced smile drop in surprise. "Finnick?"

He looks better than the last time she saw him in the hospital, but still not the picture of health and beauty he had always been on her television.

His mouth twitches up and he gestures to himself in true showman fashion. "The one and only."

Madge clamps her hand over her mouth, horrified at her rudeness. She doesn't even know the man and she's just called him by his first name, like an old friend. "I'm so sorry-I didn't know-"

Scrambling, Madge gets to her feet and straightens her dress, smoothes her hair and gives her face one last scrub with her sleeve. She starts to hold out her hand, but stops when she realizes he probably won't want it after watching her rub her nose on her sleeve, so instead she hides them behind her back. Her already knotted stomach rolls when she spots a little compartment with a light on, she must've woken him. Just her luck.

"It's nice to meet you Mr. Odair. I'm sorry if I bothered you."

He tilts his head, studies her for a second, then a small smile forms at the edges of his mouth. "It's just Finnick," he tells her. "And you didn't bother me. I don't sleep so well."

Madge gives that a grateful little nod. She can appreciate not being able to sleep. Even with the comforts returned to her life, she still wakes at all hours of the night, her mind flooded with images of fire and her father. She can only imagine what nightmares live in Finnick Odair's mind.

He stares at her for another few seconds before his glowing green eyes drift down the hall, probably expecting to see a pursuer. When he finds none, though, he arches his eyebrows.

"I'm late getting home," Madge explains, which she realizes when she spots a clock over his shoulder, is true.

"I've never seen anyone this upset over missing curfew." He shrugs. "But if it's a secret it's yours to keep I guess."

"You don't live with who I live with," Madge mutters, more to herself than to him. The looming threat of a long talk from Mr. Abernathy adding a grim amount of humor to her situation.

Mr. Odai-Finnick-snaps his fingers, startling her.

"I knew you looked familiar." His smile widens. "You're Haymitch's girl."

Madge isn't quite sure how to respond to that; she's never been referred to in that way.

Her wrinkled nose and scrunched eyebrows seem to amuse him and he chuckles. "I mean you're the girl that was with him in the hospital. I remember you."

"Oh," Madge shrugs. "Yeah, that was me."

"I didn't realize he had any kids," Finnick says off handedly, leaning to get a better look at her. "No offense to him, but you must take after your mother."

Madge shakes her head with a laugh. "I'm not his daughter. He doesn't have any kids."

"Ah," Finnick nods sagely. "Sorry, I just didn't think-you just look a little young for him-"

Madge feels her mouth actually drop open and the heat flood her face. "I'm not his girlfriend either."

Finnick's mouth clamps shut and he chews his tongue. He stares at her for a minute.

"Oh," is all he finally says.

Not certain if she's flattered or offended, Madge fidgets with the ends of her sleeves as the awkward silence saturates the air around them.

"I need to go," she finally says, gesturing in the general direction she had been running. "'Bye."

She's barely taken a few steps when she feels Finnick's hand on her shoulder.

Uneasily, she turns and frowns at him.

"Look," he fixes her in his mesmerizing stare, "whatever it is, you'll be okay."

He would probably know better than most, she supposes. After the life he's had to live, the problems of a silly teenage girl probably seem laughable.

With another forced smile, Madge nods and takes off, leaving him to his restlessness.

#######

Mr. Abernathy is still awake when she gets back, but barely.

"You're late," he grumbles as he scrubs his stubbly face roughly with his hands.

"I got lost," she tells him as she keeps her face down. It's the truth. She had been lost, just not physically.

All her crying and running, finally telling Gale why she can't be around him, has relieved her of a weight she hadn't even known she'd been shouldering.

The air is clear for them, and now things can hopefully be easier. He can stop asking and she can stop avoiding. She can focus her energy on more important things now. Though what those things are she doesn't know.

She flops onto her cot, snuggles in beside her mother and rolls to her side so that her back is to Mr. Abernathy.

"So," he sits up a little in his stolen chair, "how was dinner?"

Madge shrugs. "Fine."

"Was, uh-"

"No," she answers before he can even finish asking if Gale had been there. Because he hadn't, not for the official dinner anyway.

Nodding, Mr. Abernathy presses his lips into a line, thinking.

"I ran into Finnick Odair," Madge tells him. She doesn't want Finnick to tell him, it needs to be Madge. She needs to do damage control.

"I fell," she chuckles. "I was running to get back and I tripped. Started crying. He probably thinks I'm a mess."

The chair groans and Madge hears Mr. Abernathy's shoes scooting on the floor as he gets up and pulls the sting on the light, plunging the room into darkness.

"Doubt that," Mr. Abernathy grunts as he struggles up the tiny ladder to the upper bunk. "Finnick's pretty good at reading people."

After a few minutes Madge sighs into the silence.

"I wish I could sleep," she tells him.

The upper bunk shakes a little, he's probably rolling over, and she hears him let out a long breath.

"Me too, kid. Me too."

#######

They're allowed back up the next day.

It isn't quite as exciting as Madge had hoped, they shuffle everyone out in shifts, directing them to their new quarters. All the old ones are in ruins.

Mr. Abernathy leaves before Madge and her mother.

"Going up top to see the damage," he tells them as he downs a cup of black coffee and rubs his eyes. "Film a little."

Madge sighs. That means Gale and Katniss will be there. She can't help but feel a little jealous, not of their getting to go together, she's refusing to think about that anymore, but that they get to go out at all. She feels as if she's wilting to a stem in the underground.

"I'll bring you some grass," he tells her when he catches the dejected expression on her face. Then he presses a kiss to her hair and leaves.

The first taken up are the ill, those that need to be returned to the hospital ward, then the very old, families with children (Madge spots the Hawthornes among this group), then, as almost after thoughts, everyone else is assigned a shift. Madge and her mother draw the last one. She gets the feeling it isn't by chance.

So while the day drags on they sit in their compartment reading and waiting for their turn until late in the evening someone finally calls out.

"Last shift!"

Aching with waiting, Madge stands and pulls her mother to her feet and they shuffle out to be directed to their new home.

The final crowd moves at a steady pace, up the winding corridors, through the dim lighting, until they finally reach the upper levels. Once there they wait in lines again to be given maps to their new residence.

It doesn't look much different than their old room. The furniture is exactly the same, the tiny kitchenette is set up as it had been. Even the comforter on the bed has the same hideous pattern on it.

"Home sweet home," she mutters to herself as she pulls open a drawer and finds they've stocked them up on gray underwear, socks, pants, shirts, and to her great disappointment, pillowcase dresses.

It's nearly eleven when the door slides open, a little slower than the old one, and Mr. Abernathy steps in.

Madge starts to chastise him, in fun, for his late night, but her mock admonishment dies on her tongue when she sees his state.

His skin is pale, the yellow tinge has even faded from it, and his eyes are horribly pink and red. There are a few scrapes and tears on his gray outfit and a bit of blood smeared on his sleeve that Madge immediately hones in on.

"What happened?"

Rubbing his hand over his forehead, he sighs. "Girl had a fit."

Katniss.

Hot fury flares up in Madge's stomach and she bites her tongue to keep all her angry words from bubbling over. She knows she'll regret them.

While she's busy fuming, Mr. Abernathy reaches out and puts his weathered hand on her shoulder, gives it a squeeze, then pulls her to him so tightly she struggles to breath.

"It just hit her," he says, his voice cracking. "That they're using him against her, and she couldn't do it."

Something wet starts to seep onto Madge's scalp, and when she realizes what it is she slowly wraps her arms around his middle.

With her ear pressed to his heart, listening to the frantic beat of it, Madge shushes him, tries to sooth him, but she's at a loss. No one has ever really needed her comfort, it's an unfamiliar sensation.

When his breathing evens out and his arms loosen, Madge swallows down bile. Before she knows it, her mouth has let her thoughts spill out.

"How could she not know?"

Mr. Abernathy chuckles, a little wet and completely mirthless. "Not everyone is as well versed in Capitol tactics as you, sweetheart."

#######

He leaves after a shower, though Madge doesn't think it does him much good. He looks as bedraggled as he had when he walked in.

"Do you want me to come with you?" She asks. He doesn't look well and it makes the knots in her stomach coil and tighten more.

He shakes his head, pats her cheek, then vanishes back to the hospital wing to sit with Katniss.

All of the anger Madge had felt toward Katniss evaporates in her veins. She's suffering, she isn't enjoying all this, and her sudden realization has put her into hysterics. There's never been someone Madge needed to be less jealous of in her life.

Instead of going to bed, trying and failing to sleep or sleeping only to find fire and death waiting, Madge paces the floor.

Clockwise then counter, back and forth, sit then stand, over and over again until her feet sting and her eyes burn. She's just about decided to take a shower to see if it would calm her when a frantic knock taps out on the door.

Glancing at the clock, Madge sees it's almost midnight. Who visits at midnight?

Agitated and irritable, Madge goes to the door and slams the button, cringing when it grinds open.

Blinking once, twice, she frowns. Vick and Rory.

Before she can fully process what she's seeing, Vick launches himself at her, sobbing into her now wrinkled dress.

"Madge, you have to help us," he blubbers, sniffles as his hands clutch at her back.

Rory just stands there, uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes red rimmed and puffy.

It takes her a minute to quiet him, get Vick calm enough to tell her what's the matter, though it does nothing to help her nerves.

After Katniss breakdown, after they'd sedated her, they'd apparently realized that she'd be no good to them as a figurehead if she couldn't get through even one shoot. The Capitol was winning the battle for Katniss' mind.

They'd started planning, putting together a team to go to the Capitol to rescue Peeta, to restore their Mockingjay's sanity.

The bile starts to burn in Madge's throat.

She's glad they're finally going to do something for Peeta, who has clearly suffered for their planning and scheming, but a part of her wonders what the cost will be. Vick quickly gives her the estimate.

"Gale's leaving," Vick, his little voice thick with tears and saliva, tells her. "He's going to save Peeta."

Her heart stops.

There are surely trained professionals, people who have dedicated their lives to stealth and rescue. Not nineteen year old boys trying to woo a girl.

It's a ridiculous thought that those in charge allow an untrained man, someone with no military experience, to participate in such a clandestine plan. Madge wouldn't put it past them though. Gale is handsome and increasingly well known, first as Katniss' 'cousin' and now as a rebel leader. Even if he's killed it would provide a spectacular bit of programming for Thirteen.

"They can't make him," she assures them. "I'll go talk to Mr. Abernathy, he'll put a stop to this."

She's certain of it.

Rory shakes his head. "They aren't making him do anything."

They stare at each other for a moment, letting his words seep into her brain. She feels her heart start up again, pounding uncomfortably against her ribs.

"Why?" She asks, even though she already knows the answer.

"You know why," Rory finally says. His voice shakes and his eyes shine. "He's an idiot." Then tears start to roll down his cheeks, making him look younger than he has since Madge has known him. "But he's our idiot."

Madge reaches out and takes his hand, pulls him to her side and rubs soothing little circles on his back.

"He's gonna die for her," Rory mutters into her shoulder. "He's gonna die and-"

"Shush," Madge whispers. "Gale's too stubborn to die and you know it."

Rory pulls back, wiping at his eyes furiously. "Not that stubborn. He's just-he's selfish."

She starts to counter, but he barrels on, his hands shaking.

"He thinks he's gonna be some kind of hero but he's just gonna leave us and then what?"

As she tries again, Vick cuts in.

"Madge, Peeta is great, but," his wide gray eyes shine as he looks up at her, tears clinging to his long dark eyelashes, "but Gale's our brother. I don't want to trade."

Taking her sleeve, pulling it down over her hand, Madge wipes his face and gives him a weak smile.

"I'll try," she finally says before stepping between them, toward the door.

They all know she's not going to convince Gale not to go, but they've come all this way, begged her, she feels like she owes it to them to at least make an effort. Even if it's doomed.

#######

Her lungs are stinging when she gets to the hospital wing. She doesn't know that it's where Gale will be, but it's where Katniss is. They're partners, to the very end.

She skids to a stop on her socks, now filthy and slick, and barely manages to stay upright as she makes the turn to the double doors leading into the hospital wing.

Before she reaches them though, out the corner of her eye, she spots a tall figure already halfway down the adjacent hall. He's unmistakable.

"Gale!" She doesn't care if they come out of the infirmary and tell her to be quiet, she can't let him slip away without trying.

Breathless and flushed, she again skids to a stop, almost sliding into him as she does.

"Madge?" His eyebrows pull together and his eyes trace the outline of her figure in the dim hall light.

She's a mess, her dress has tear stains from his brothers across the front and shoulders and it's wrinkled from a day's worth of wear, and her hair is probably in shambles, not only from running but from being cried on as well.

"What are you doing here?" He asks. "It's nearly one."

Taking deep, painful breaths, Madge manages to steady herself.

"Don't go, Gale."

He freezes, stares at her as though he doesn't know what she's talking about, then, as she feels the tears start to burn behind her eyes, he sighs.

"I have to."

"No, you don't." She straightens herself out, starts to reach out to him, but pulls her hand back before she can make the mistake. "Please, Gale, there are others to do it. You have family here. They need you."

A long, warm breathe slowly deflates his stance.

"I knew I should've just written them a letter," he mumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Gale-"

"I have to do this," he clips her off.

"Why?" She takes a step back as if his madness will infect her too.

"I have to," he tells her simply.

She begins shaking, shivering like she's been doused in ice water. He doesn't have to. He wants to.

"What about your family, Gale? Did you think about them when you signed up for this suicide mission?"

"It's been carefully planned out," he tells her, crossing his arms and setting his mouth in a thin line. "And don't you dare accuse me of not thinking about my family. Everything I do is because of them."

Taking a step forward, Madge tries to steady her shaking.

"How is going into a potentially deadly rescue mission, that's only had a few hours of planning so don't insult my intelligence by telling me it's been 'carefully planned out', thinking of your family?"

Frustrated tears start to pool at the corners of her eyes, but she won't let them fall. She won't cry in front of him again, it won't change anything.

"There are people trained for this, Gale. Please don't do this. Your family needs you."

She hopes continually mentioning his family will hammer home just what he's abandoning, but he just lifts his chin a little and holds her in an even look.

"This isn't Twelve and they aren't on their own," he begins. "They'll be fine no matter what happens to me."

They hold each other's gaze for a minute, neither one willing to concede, until Madge feels something warm and wet slide down her cheek.

Brushing it away, she curses herself. Crying again. Damn.

"Gale they love you," she whispers, her voice brittle in the cold air around her.

I love you.

"Just because you aren't feeding them doesn't mean they don't need you."

His expression relaxes and he takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes.

Madge tries one last thing, her final effort.

"She'll loveyou no matter what." She forces a frail smile for him. "Don't do this."

For a second he just stares at her, letting the silence stretch out between them, filling Madge with a sense of dread. She's failed and she knows it.

As she's about to walk away, decide what she's going to tell Vick and Rory, Gale grabs her by the wrist and pulls her back, crushing her to his chest. His hand runs up her back and he sighs, a warm puff of air ghosting through her slightly damp hair.

Madge closes her eyes and inhales his warm scent; let's herself enjoy the temporary closeness that isn't hers to have. Jealousy and irritation temporarily swell in her despite her attempts to squash them. Katniss has two amazing men, and Madge can't help but think their Mockingjay doesn't fully appreciate either of them.

As quickly at the thought forms Madge squashes it down. It's unfair. Katniss hadn't asked for any of this, and if Prim's name had never been plucked from the Reaping Bowl the odds were that at the end of all things, Katniss and Gale would've married, Peeta would've ended up just as miserable as his father, and Madge's life would've continued to be just as hollow as it had always been. She closes her eyes and tries to be grateful for the fleeting moment of contact, this final flicker of whatever affection she's somehow earned, and not angry over things beyond anyone's control.

"I have to do this," Gale whispers and a shiver shoots up Madge's spine.

And just like that, she knows he does. He loves Katniss and he can't watch her suffer, even if it hurts him. That's a feeling she can commiserate with.

He gives her one last squeeze, and Madge is certain she feels his chapped lips press into her now slightly less sweaty hair, before he pulls back. His lips turned up, just a little. "Keep an eye on the kids for me?"

Trying to keep the tears from falling anymore Madge nods. "I'll try."

"Feel free to beat Rory if you need to," he chuckles softly.

Madge shakes her head. "I think he'd enjoy it."

Gale's eyebrows knit together then he nods. "Yeah, probably right. Just ignore him."

Her eyes trace the curve of his jaw, the dark stubble across it, and she suddenly wonders what it would feel like against her lips, what his lips taste like when they aren't hateful and hurt, and she pushes down the urge to find out.

He loves Katniss. And that's all there is to it.

He'll come back with Peeta and Madge can't complicate their situation more. Even if she's been a bad one, she's still their friend.

Instead, she reaches out and gives his hand a little squeeze. "Please be careful, Gale."

He looks at her hand, studies it for a second before his gray eyes rise, lock with hers.

She barely registers what's happening, how close his face is getting or how harsh his breath is, stale with coffee and something she can't quite place, when his lips press against her cheek.

They're rough and dry, his whiskers scratch her skin, and her mind tries desperately to cling to the memory, burn it into her mind for eternity.

"Staying away doesn't make it any better," he breathes against her skin, his lips grazing her cheek again. He pulls back, gives her a small, certain smile. "I'll see you when I get back."

Then he's gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for the help.

Madge drags herself through the day.

She make dozens and dozens of gumdrops, sheets of chocolate bark, and so much glass candy she's certain most of it'll go to waste and she'll get a little notice on her arm, telling her to be more careful with the rations the next morning. It doesn't matter though, she can't worry over that at the moment. Staying busy is the only way she's going to make it through the day.

"Love," her mother whispers, catching Madge's hand as she furiously breaks a sheet of red speckled candy into shards.

Her mother doesn't know what's happened; Madge can't bring herself to tell her. She may breakdown, and Madge can't handle her having a fit at the moment, or she may not register the implications, the danger, that has Madge so worried, and Madge doesn't think she can handle that either.

Despite her lack of awareness, she still senses something is amiss. Mr. Abernathy hadn't come for breakfast, and as lunch approaches Madge doubts he'll come for that either.

With a small smile her mother takes her spoon and dips it into a small bowl of thin white chocolate. She waves it over the fudge she's making, twirls it, and Madge watches as her own name 'Madge' appears in her mother's delicate looking scroll.

They blend it in, make it impossible to see the name hidden in it before setting it aside to cool.

"Why don't you take a break," she tells Madge before she escapes back to her brutalization of the glass candy.

"Mom-"

"Go." Her mother gives her a gentle push towards the door. "Take a nap."

She must look awful for her mother to send her away, so Madge nods and slinks off, to the hall and towards their compartment.

Just as she makes the corner past one of the endless rows of featureless singles compartments, her fingers working at the bow on her apron that she had knotted up during the morning and her eyes and mind focused on it, she runs headlong into someone.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she starts apologizing before she's even registered just who she's run into.

"Well at least you stayed upright this time," the man says, grinning.

Blinking to clear her vision, Madge refocuses.

Finnick Odair.

"Madge?"

To his right, looking pitiful and ragged, is Katniss.

It's the first time Madge has seen her, really and truly, since she lost her position as Mr. Abernathy's assistant and the first time she's acknowledged Madge's existence since before everything had gone so terribly wrong.

Uncertainly, Madge gives her a little nod. "Hello, Katniss."

An uncomfortable silence fills the void and Madge's fingers absently begin toying with the frayed edges of her apron.

When it gets too thick, suffocating, Madge pushes her hair out of her face and gives them both a little smile.

"I guess I'll see you around."

She steps around them and has made it to the next corner when she hears her name again.

Turning, she sees that Katniss has almost caught up with her. She's only a few steps away when she stops, her expression guarded.

"You're staying with Haymitch?"

Madge nods.

Katniss copies her, somewhat unconsciously, her eyes focused somewhere past Madge's shoulder. "He told you then?"

Her eyes suddenly focus, settling on Madge, not waiting for an answer. "You hate me, don't you?"

It sounds less like a question and more like an accusation, as if she's heard all the hateful things Madge has thought during those dark moments over the last month or so.

They stare at each other for a minute, Madge unable and unwilling to defend herself. She deserves scorn for her disloyalty and she won't back down from whatever abuses Katniss sees fit to bring down on her.

"I'm sorry."

Madge frowns, strains her ears, certain she's hearing things.

Katniss' face starts to crumble though, and Madge knows her hearing is just fine.

"I'm sorry about your dad, and I'm sorry about the bombings, and I'm sorry about Peeta," she says, her voice thick and sloppy sounding. "I never wanted any of this."

She starts to drop to the floor, but Madge manages to catch her under the arm to slow her descent.

For the third time in less than twenty-four hours Madge finds herself trying to comfort someone. She supposes it's a sort of cosmic payback for all the times she's been a blubbering mess.

A strange sort of relief floods Madge's system. Katniss hasn't mentioned Gale, his and Madge's connection hasn't occurred to her, and as bitter as that is to swallow, that she's not even the remotest of threats to the relationship between the two, it's oddly comforting. Some things are constant.

As she's shushing Katniss, patting her back and smoothing her hair, Finnick drops down beside them, settles a hand on Katniss' shoulder.

"It's okay. It's okay," he murmurs, his voice a pleasant hum over Katniss crying.

A few minutes later Katniss' tears slow and her sniffles lessen to the point that she pulls back, wiping her nose on her arm. She gives Madge a weary smile.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Madge tells her, taking her hands and giving them a comforting squeeze. "I don't hate you."

She's had moments of anger, frustration, disappointment, but when she thinks about it she knows she's never really hated Katniss. The things she's had forced on her, whether for good or ill, but never Katniss.

"You've been avoiding me."

Madge presses her lips into a line and sighs. She supposes she has, even if only tangentially.

"I…" She starts to deny it, tell her the truth, that it's Gale and her pitiful schoolgirl crush that's blossomed into something painful and aching that she's been avoiding, but she stops herself. Katniss doesn't need Madge's problems on her plate and she doesn't want her to hate her over something so pointless.

There's no battle over Gale's heart, Katniss won it long ago, and telling her about something as hopeless as Madge's crush may only create hard feelings. Neither one of them is strong enough at the moment to handle that.

"I thought you had enough company," Madge finally mutters, hoping it's a good enough excuse.

"Too much company sometimes," Katniss grumbles.

Madge snorts and gives Katniss' hands another squeeze before letting go and looking toward her destination. She gives them both a falsely bright smile. "You two'd better get to the cafeteria before all the good gruel is gone."

Finnick's face pulls back skeptically. "There's good gruel?"

"You clearly haven't had it cold," Madge answers. With her ever shifting schedule, something they claim is to keep hard feelings from developing between the shift, she's eaten at every assigned time. "My lunch isn't until after everyone else has eaten this week."

He grins, and though it's a bit forced, Madge can sense it's genuine. "Come eat with us then."

Katniss nods her agreement.

"I'm not scheduled for it," Madge quickly tells them, hoping to save herself from an awkward lunch with a man she doesn't really know and a girl she hasn't spoken to in over a month. Besides, she doesn't feel much like talking.

Grabbing her arm, Finnick makes a clucking noise with his tongue as his soft green eyes scan her arm. "You aren't scheduled to be wandering the halls either, but here you are."

Snatching her arm back, Madge covers her schedule and mumbles that it's more of a guideline than a schedule anyway.

"Then let it guide you to a warm pile of mush."

Without an excuse, Madge follows them back the way she came, and waits with them in line to get their tray even though the grumpy old woman that reminds her a little too much of Mrs. Oberst refuses to serve her.

"You'll eat when you're scheduled," she snaps.

So instead Madge sits beside Katniss as she and Finnick push their cooling mush around on their plates in disinterest.

Finnick sighs, pushes his bowl away and gives Madge another quizzical once over.

"So, your name is Madge?"

She nods. She'd forgotten she hadn't really introduced herself to him the evening before.

He crosses his arms on the table. "And since you've already established you are neither old Haymitch's daughter or lover-"

Katniss lets out a snort of laughter, her mouth hanging open in horror. "Lover?"

Finnick shrugs. "Stranger things have happened." He refocuses on Madge. "So why has the cranky bastard taken such an interest in you?"

It finally occurs to her, as the seconds tick by and she ponders the easiest way to explain her association with Mr. Aberathy, that she hasn't been invited to keep them company. They're both preoccupied, their emotions pulled taut waiting, Madge imagines, for word about the raid. They want a distraction.

"My aunt was in the last Quarter Quell," she finally explains. "They had an alliance. He and my mother became friends, I think, and," she shrugs, at a loss, "and he's just always been friendly with me."

"We watched it," Katniss blurts out, her eyes trained on her now cold gray mush. She glances over at Madge. "The Quell. Pe-We watched it on the train. You look like her."

"She and my mother were twins." Madge shrugs. It only made sense she'd look like both of them.

"That's rough," Finnick sighs.

Nodding, Madge sighs, "Yeah. She doesn't cope so well."

Katniss finally pulls her eyes from her mush, her eyebrows pulled together. "How is she doing here?"

Gesturing toward the back of the cafeteria, towards the kitchens, Madge smiles faintly. "Surprisingly well. They've got her making candy. Good for morale and it saves for ages."

Though she can't imagine anyone wanting to exist on sugary sweets if they were trapped in the underground.

"What kind of candy?" Finnick asks, looking genuinely interested.

For the next hour, as the cafeteria clears out and the cleaning crew starts to sanitize the tables for the next wave, Madge tells them about the candies she and her mother have been cooking up. Then she talks about the candies they can't make, the ones with fresh fruit and berries, describing how she'd always helped her Poppa make them when she'd been little.

"My dad bought me cherry glass," Katniss remembers aloud. "For my birthday, every year until…"

She looks back at her mush, apparently having remembered that Madge's grandfather had died only a couple of years or so before her father.

"The new owner wasn't as good," Katniss finishes lamely.

Madge just nods her agreement. Her mother probably would've done fine running the sweet shop, if Madge had been older and able to help, but at the time she hadn't been and her mother was simply too unpredictable. A shop couldn't exist under the ownership of someone who could barely make it through most days.

Finnick quickly fills the silence, telling them about pulled taffy, toffees and caramels that the shops near his childhood home had sold.

"My brother still brings me salted caramel bites for my birthday," he tells them as he ends his story, his eyes dropping to his own bowl. "Well, he did."

Uncertainly, Madge reaches out and takes his hand. "He's alive?"

He starts to shrug, then shakes his head. "I doubt it. I warned him to get ready to run with, but…"

The Capitol is always a step ahead and twice as prepared it seems, and Finnick knows it. His brother is as good as dead.

"He's all you have left?" Katniss asks, her mouth tugging down as she waits for his answer.

His head shakes and he chews his lip. "No. I was a good boy, did what I was told after I saw what lengths they were willing to go to."

Madge's stomach tightens, churns unpleasantly inside her, remembering what Mr. Abernathy had told her about Finnick's sacrifice for Annie. He'd given up a part of himself for his family and then for a girl he hadn't even known. No wonder he and Katniss are seemingly friends, they're both self-sacrificing to a fault it seems.

The kitchen crew filters in, eats their cold mush in silence, though Madge doesn't get her share. She doubts she can keep it down.

Her mother doesn't come out, but that doesn't shock Madge. She probably got so caught up in rolling out this or that that she forgot the time.

After the hours melt away, drag on painfully slowly, Finnick and Katniss stand and silently pull Madge along with them.

She finds herself at the back of a cramped room, the control center for the propos. The walls lined with monitors and computers and it's brimming with people all madly working on overtaking the Capitol's airwaves.

When the feed cuts in both Katniss and Finnick seem to freeze, transfixed by their own voices coming through the speakers, or perhaps by the fact that the struggle for dominance on the television seems to have wavered. Mr. Latier's feed isn't as choppy as the last.

Katniss' part is small, a cameo if that. It's Finnick's story, the dirty details of President Snow's dealings, his forced prostitution and abuses against the Victors that steals the show.

She hadn't expected it, for the truth, something she'd worked out years before, to finally be exposed to the entirety of the country, but Madge is glad when it is. People need to know that the Victors weren't the spoiled, shiny pets of the Capitol. They were people and they were suffering even if they were well fed and clothed.

When it ends, Mr. Latier relinquishes his grip on the feed, and Madge ducks her face and quickly wipes her face on the hem of her dress.

Mr. Latier says something about the rescue squad, that they've either escaped or are dead, and Madge keeps doubled over, the hem of her dress pressed to her eyes.

Katniss and Finnick probably look appalled, Madge knows she is, and Mr. Latier must see, because he quickly beckons them to another room to show them the plan.

Much as she'd like to see, Madge hangs back, sure she won't be allowed.

Finnick turns and gestured for her to follow. "No reason to start following rules now."

Mr. Latier explains it to them, and to her it seems convoluted, but not impossible. Explosions and gas, distractions and rebel assistance, it's complicated. Katniss and Finnick seem to find it hard to follow though, and that makes Mr. Latier happy.

"It's supposed to be confusing," he explains. "The harder it is to follow the less likely they'll be able to figure it out."

"Like your electricity trap in the arena?" Katniss asks.

He nods enthusiastically. "Exactly. And look how well that worked out?"

Madge doesn't remember much about the plan, and she hadn't see its execution, but judging by the flash of incredulousness on Katniss' face it wasn't exactly the glowing success he paints it as.

They try to stay in the room, but are all shuffled out when more people pour in for some kind of important war meeting. Instead of going back to their rooms, Finnick and Katniss settle down in the hummingbird room. Madge tells them goodbye.

"You don't want to stay?" Katniss asks, her expression tight with worry. "This is where we'll get word on P- the extraction team first."

She hasn't mentioned Gale specifically, and Madge wonders if it's because she doesn't think Madge will care or because she can't bear to say his name. Either way, Madge feels the emptiness of his omission.

They'll both come back. That's what she tells herself over and over again. Anything else is unthinkable. Peeta is too good and Gale is too strong for even this to take them from the world.

"I need to let my mother know where I am," Madge explains. "She-last time I disappeared on her she didn't do so well."

Katniss' frown deepens and Madge wonders if it's because while she's running around saving the nation, Madge is still explaining her whereabouts to her mad mother. It is a bit funny, even if Madge also thinks it's a bit sad.

They say goodbye and Madge leaves the eerily calm room, winds her way through the weapons until she reaches the exit.

She spots Mr. Abernathy standing at the edge of the room, looking bone weary and worn, talking in low tones to Mr. Latier. He looks up and gives Madge a faint smile of acknowledgement so she jogs the distance to him.

"Can I ask a favor?"

Shifting so that his back is against the wall, Mr. Abernathy nods. "What is it, Pearl?"

Her eyes cut to Mr. Latier and she pauses. She still isn't quite sure how she feels about him. He seems nice enough, and he's clearly working hard to help the rebellion, but something about his work with weapons sets uneasy with her.

Seeming to sense her hesitance, Mr. Abernathy pushes off from the wall and wraps his arm around her, walks her a few paces until they're outside Mr. Latier's earshot.

"I-Can you let me know when they get back?" She knows that even if she comes back and stays with Katniss and Peeta she won't be allowed back for the reunion. Their disregard for the rules won't be overlooked any longer and she doubts Mr. Abernathy will pull any strings for her. "Please?"

He lets out a long sigh, it smells of strong coffee and she wrinkles her nose.

"Sure."

"Promise?"

"I'll let you know." He takes her by the shoulders and levels her in a sharper look than she would think him capable of while running on caffeine and adrenaline. His eyes narrow on her as he lets her go. "Be careful."

Popping up on her toes, she presses a kiss to his scraggy cheek. "You too."

#######

Madge doesn't sleep, doesn't even close her eyes as she sits up waiting for some word from Mr. Abernathy.

When morning comes though, no different than any other, she walks with her mother to their little room in the kitchens before ducking out to go to the hospital wing. That's where they'd take Peeta, that's where everyone will be.

He probably just forgot.

That's what she tells herself. He's so elated over having Peeta back that telling Madge how he's doing had slipped right out of his mind. The alternative, something horrible, isn't something she'll even consider.

It's eerily calm, beds are full and people are flitting around, but there's an unnatural stillness to everything. A muted, forced sort of levelness that bodes ominous to her.

Before she can catch one of the staff and ask where Mr. Abernathy is, a rough hand grabs her and begins wheeling her out.

"Get outta here, Pearl."

"Mr. Abernathy!" She almost topples over on the tile and as he drags her out the doors. He's surprisingly strong for a man who probably hasn't slept or eaten a real meal in days.

She wiggles from his grip. "What's happened?"

He shakes his head. "Just go. You don't need to be here."

"No." She catches his sleeve, refuses to let go. "What's going on? What's happened to Peeta?"

Her stomach rolls and lurches. That has to be it. It's the only thing that could put him in this state. Worry and anger over Peeta.

His red rimmed eyes narrow on her. "It doesn't concern you."

It's such a cold reply that Madge recoils just a bit.

"But-"

He grabs her by the elbow and yells for one of a dozen men to come over and hands her off. "Take her to the kitchens and don't let her leave, got it?"

The man nods, holds steady to Madge's arm and pulls her away from the metallic doors.

Mr. Abernathy turns from her, and as she watches him retreat back into hospital wing her mind reels. This isn't how things are supposed to be happening. He trusts her. He promised her.

A cold realization hits her.

He'd been using her. Madge's value to him was contingent to what she could give him.

In Twelve it was to stay in her father's good graces, keep him in the know with things he'd otherwise not be privy to. His goodwill towards her had been a sham to manipulate her father.

When he'd been ill, before he'd been able to go to meetings himself, he'd used her as his assistant because he knew she had a lifetime of reading people, gathering up unstated information and storing it away for later use.

Maybe if she'd tried harder to stay on as his assistant he'd have started to actually value her as a person and not just as a tool, but that time was past. Now something had happened and he was letting her know just how low she ranked in his life. She wasn't even worthy of the small courtesy of being told who had lived and died.

It's as if she feels her heart breaking. Her chest stings and her breath catches in her throat.

Of all the people she's ever known, only one has never treated her poorly, never treated her as an afterthought or beneath consideration, never ignored her questions, and he's throwing her out. It had all been a game to him.

She's in a limbo, trapped until she knows if Gale and Peeta are alive, and he doesn't even care.

"Mr. Abernathy?" She calls, her voice unable to form the scream she desperately wants it to.

She needs him to turn, look her in the eye and let her know that her mind is playing a cruel trick on her, that he cares and this is a show for someone else.

He hears her, he stops. But he doesn't turn, doesn't look back.

He ignores her.

#######

Her mother doesn't make her work, just hums to her as she sits under the back table and ruminates.

She's furious even though she knows she has no right to be. She isn't a leader, isn't even involved with the rebellion unless they're using candy to turn the Capitol's blood to sludge like the doctor in Town had warned her could happen. Mr. Abernathy is under no obligation to inform her of anything, but he always had.

No, she thinks bitterly, she probably only thought he had. There's no telling what he's kept from her. She's accepted what scraps of information he tossed her without question and she hates herself for it.

She leaves early, considering going back to the hospital wing, but decides against it. Her arm still hurts. She'll try again tomorrow.

Instead of going back to the compartment right away though, she takes a detour. She needs at least some answers.

"Madge?"

Mrs. Hawthorne frowns at her from inside the doorframe. She's alone for once. Posy must be in class, she'd mentioned she was going to start.

"Have you heard?" Madge's hands twist together as she holds Mrs. Hawthorne's confused stare."About-"

"Gale is fine," she answers before Madge can even get the question out, her eyebrows scrunched together in uncertainty. She probably expected Haymitch to have told Madge all the details of what had happened on the raid. "He's injured and stuck in the hospital wing for a while, mostly to keep him still, but he's fine."

A breath Madge hadn't even known she was holding finally comes out. She nods and feels tears of relief start to build behind her eyes. "Good. Good."

Before she knows what's happening, Mrs. Hawthorne has her in a tight hug.

They stay like that until Madge finally gets antsy and pulls back to check her face. A little damp, but not too bad and her nose hasn't started running.

"I don't know about Peeta." Mrs. Hawthorne's forehead creases. "They're being tight lipped about it. He's alive, but, I-there's something with Katniss, but that's all I could gather."

It's more than Madge had gotten so she's grateful for even this tidbit of information.

Backing up, Madge gives her a grateful smile. "Thanks."

She starts to leave, her main questions-Gale and Peeta's statuses-have been answered and she feels emotionally drained from the anxiety of the past two days, but Mrs. Hawthorne's hand, still rough from years of laundry work, catches her shoulder.

"Madge," she stops and considers the girl in front of her for a minute, then sighs. "Gale told me. About the other night."

It's beyond Madge to even be embarrassed, she's just too tired, so she just sighs. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Glancing up, Madge sees a weak smile on Mrs. Hawthorne's lips. She reaches out and takes Madge's hand. "Madge, Katniss is very dear to me, but so are you. I love my son, but…I think he may be holding onto something he thinks he should want, rather than what he really does."

With that and another small smile, she gives Madge's hand another squeeze before vanishing back into her compartment.

#######

When she gets back to the compartment she goes straight to bed even though she still can't sleep.

The door slides open late and she knows Mr. Abernathy is back, but she doesn't bother going to him. He's made it abundantly clear he isn't going to tell her anything and she's still stinging from his manhandling and the bitter truth finally coming to light. There's a small bruise on her elbow and she almost gets up to show him just to make him feel a little worse.

She doesn't though. As mad at him as she is she doesn't really want to hurt him even if he's broken her heart.

The next day she tries to get into the hospital wing again, but they've obviously been warned about her. The same man that had dragged her to the kitchens the day prior again forcefully pushes her away and accompanies her to the kitchens.

On the second day he simply glares at her and she leave on her own. She wonders why she even bothered going.

As she and her mother wander home, listless and quiet after work, Vick and Rory catch her.

"Where have you been?" Vick frowns.

She'd forgotten about them if she was being completely honest. They'd been gone when she'd gotten back to the compartment, after her failed attempt to stop Gale from going on the mission, and then they'd probably missed her the next day when she'd left early and stayed with Katniss and Finnick. Not even seeing their mother had brought them to her mind. Then, these past few days they'd kept the kitchen doors locked, mostly to keep Mr. Abernathy out in the unlikely chance he tried to visit.

"Did you hear?" Rory whispers. "Did Haymitch tell you?"

A scowl forms on Madge's face as she bites back saying something horrible.

"No," she answers flatly.

They don't seem to sense her hostility though, they're too eager to tell her their news, get her opinion. When they finish she almost wishes they hadn't.

Hijacked.

It isn't a word she's familiar with and she racks her brain for any conversation she may have heard her father have with such a word in it. None comes to mind.

Sweet, loving Peeta is gone. His mind has been warped, though the boys aren't sure of the specifics, and he's tried to kill Katniss. He's unpredictable and violent and under lock and key.

This, she thinks numbly, is why Mr. Abernathy had thrown her out of the hospital wing. It's too horrible to think about, let alone talk about.

Her sympathy for him is short lived though, when she realizes that Gale apparently trust his brothers, ten and thirteen year old boys, more than Mr. Abernathy does her. This is just more proof he's been using her. It boils her blood.

She tells the boys to walk her mother back to the compartment and takes off to the hospital wing.

It isn't her usual time and they probably aren't expecting her, the guards have disappeared for the time being, so she manages to get in the doors and to the end of the first row before her intrusion is noticed. By the last person she would've expected.

"Madge!" Delly Cartwright, bubbly and happy, waves to her.

Fighting off a groan and scanning the room for her eternal escort, Madge casually walks over to where Delly sits at the edge of one of the makeshift beds.

She's thinner and paler, her yellow hair is dirtier than it had ever been, but other than that she looks much the same as she had in Twelve. Albeit her clothes had been nicer, but then again, hadn't all of theirs?

"Are you here to see Peeta too?" Delly asks innocently.

Blindsided but not ready to give up her mission to get more information that hasn't been through the imagination of boys that still can't stop staring at her chest, Madge smiles. "Yes, I think so."

"It's just horrible, isn't it?" Delly frets. "This 'hijacking' thing."

With a nod, Madge grimaces. "Terrible."

"I just hope when he sees me he doesn't attack me, like he did with Katniss."

Madge nods, as though she understand completely what Delly is telling her, glances around again and sighs. "I don't think they'd let anything happen to you. They're prepared this time, right?"

"Oh, yes. They've prepped you too haven't they? Told you to steer clear of any association with Katniss? They think all his memories of her have been tampered with." Delly's wide blue eyes fill with tears at the thought.

Across the room Madge spots Mr. Heavensbee lumbering into a small room, mug in hand. There's probably coffee hidden away in there.

Smiling at Delly, Madge pats her knee. "I'll be right back."

She leaves Delly blowing her nose noisily and carefully makes her way past all the now unoccupied beds, to the room Mr. Heavensbee had disappeared into.

He's pouring himself a generous cup, though Madge doesn't understand how he can drink it. It looks thick and cold to her.

"Mr. Heavensbee?"

He looks up, confused for a moment, then an oily smile smears across his face. "Miss Undersee! I didn't realize you'd come for our little experiment."

Madge enters and sits at the little table at the center of the room and nods as she tries to figure out what she wants to ask. Mr. Abernathy will show up soon no doubt and she wants to get as much information as she can before he throws her out again.

"Mr. Heavensbee, how extensive is the hijacking?" She asks, as though she has any clue what any of it even means.

"Very," he tells her gravely, sipping his coffee and hissing as it burns his tongue. "It looks as though all his memories of Katniss are corrupted."

Mind rapidly cycling, Madge considers her next question carefully.

"Sir, can you explain to me this 'hijacking'?" She tilts her head, looks up at him through her hair and smiles shyly. "Mr. Abernathy, he tried, but you know how he is. Smart but…"

She lets the sentence trail and shrugs, hoping he takes the bait.

When his expression shifts into something thoughtful she knows she's almost got him.

"I just think I could understand it better from someone else."

He's a peacock. A Gamemaker. He lives for attention, to think he's a step ahead of everyone, and he's certain he's smarter than Haymitch Abernathy.

"Of course you would." His greasy smile widens.

It takes less than ten minutes for him to go over the details of Peeta's hijacking. The dosing of the tracker jacker venom in conjunction with memories, distorting them, infusing them, binding them with fear.

"And fear is one of the strongest emotions."

"There's no way to reverse it?"

He shakes his head. "Each case is unique, and we, well, there are no recorded cases of anyone surviving the technique, let alone being returned to their previous state."

It's disheartening news. Peeta, at least from the way Mr. Heavensbee speaks of him, is all but a lost cause.

"You're still going to try, though, right?" There has to be someone somewhere that can figure out how to reverse this.

His eyes widen and he nods solemnly. "Of course, my dear, but the end results are…indeterminate. The experiment with Miss Cartwright will help us determine if more memories have been disturbed or if there are safe ones, ones we can perhaps use as gateways to freeing his mind from the venom."

"I can help," Madge says instantly. She wants to do something for Peeta.

Mr. Heavensbee shakes his head and wags a finger at her. "No, no, not a good idea. I brought you up myself, but Haymitch vetoed it. He said you'll be too closely woven with the memories of Katniss during training."

A scowl almost finds its way onto Madge's face, but she pushes it down and covers it with a pleasant, understanding smile.

On that happy note his communicator chirps and he looks at it before waving his hand to the door. "I'm afraid I'm being beckoned my dear. I'll walk you back to Miss Cartwright."

The second they exit the room, Madge sees Delly, her smile a little wary. Standing at her side, looking as though he's swallowed something foul, is Mr. Abernathy.

He glowers at Madge as she finally reaches them. She can almost hear his teeth grinding.

"So lovely to see you," Madge chirps, as though they haven't spent the past few days ignoring the other's existence.

Words are beyond him though, he simply growls. Delly edges away.

Finally he swallows and a sickly sweet smile forms on his lips. "A word, Pearl?"

While she isn't certain it's advisable for her to be alone with him, possibly ever again, if he decides to do anything to her at least she's already in the hospital wing.

Wordlessly she follows him back through the beds, to the little room she and Mr. Heavensbee had been in only a few minute before.

"What the hell do you think you're doing in here?" He snaps before the door even closes all the way.

"Getting answers." She crosses her arms over her chest protectively and raises her chin a fraction. "Since you don't seem to want to give me any."

"You don't need to know."

"Well Gale seems to have thought his brothers could handle the basics, and I think I'm just as mature as them." Her voice falters and she swallows down the urge to add that it doesn't matter now anyway. Delly knowing is as good as telling the entire District. At least Madge has accurate information instead of something that's gone through the gossip grapevine.

"I don't want you in here. Peeta's unstable. There's no telling who else they've poisoned in his head. You. Me. Anyone. The girl is an experiment, and not one I'm all that sure of. I won't let you be here when it happens." His expression softens. "It isn't safe, Pearl."

Bitterness settles over Madge. She isn't Peeta or Katniss, she won't be manipulated by him. They haven't had a lifetime of watching politics unfold in front of them. She knows when she's being played.

"I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions. If I want to volunteer to see Peeta I will."

Though she knows he's already put any hopes of that to death with his veto.

"You won't." He slams the counter with his hand to punctuate it, finalize it. There'll be no debating.

Madge narrows her eyes. She's bruised and tired. He's being unfair, placing restrictions on her that he's not enforcing with Katniss, and Madge is the same age. He's known Madge longer. He should know she's more capable of handling this kind of thing than most. He should trust her more.

But he doesn't, and that cruel voice in her head tells her, he probably never really had.

She can't stand the sight of him anymore. With one last burning look she starts to storm out.

At the door she stops, hand already on the handle, and glares at him.

"You aren't my father, so stop acting like it."

If the look on his face is any indication, hitting him, breaking his nose or knocking out a tooth, would've been less painful. His sagging skin pales and his eyes, pink and red, widen.

Madge feels something shoot through her chest, a sharp pain that she knows is guilt.

Maybe he really only is trying to keep her safe and this is the best he can do.

When she thinks of the past few days, though, being hauled like a criminal to the kitchen, the little bruise on her elbow, the sense of complete abandonment and humiliation she's felt, she's able to squash the guilt back down and open the door. She leaves him standing helplessly by the coffee pot, looking hurt and lost.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for the help.

Over the next few days Madge retools her schedule, begs old Josephette to let her have the graveyard shift. It makes avoiding Mr. Abernathy easier.

She feels bad. It was unfair of her to expect him to continue treating her as something special. She isn't though. Nothing could be further from the truth. All her supposed specialness had vanished with the bombing of Twelve, with her father and her old life.

Her mother doesn't know what happed between them. Madge hasn't told her and she doubts Mr. Abernathy would risk her mind by upsetting her like that. At least she hopes he wouldn't. Even if he doesn't seem to think much of Madge she hopes he still has enough consideration for the sister of his former ally to not send her into a fit.

Through the grapevine, Madge learns that Katniss has gone to Two. Occasionally she catches clips of her friend on the television in passing, before she collapses into bed each morning. She's encouraging the rebels and visiting sick and injured. Katniss is earning her place as the face of the rebellion, while Madge is scrubbing pots and pans.

One morning, before she gets off and as she's setting up a few things in her mother's little room to make her candy making for the day go a little smoother, she hears a knock.

Standing, dressed and looking healthier than at any point since he's been in Thirteen, is Finnick Odair.

He stares at her for a moment, leans against the doorframe, his sea green eyes hovering on her for a moment before he smiles, dazzling her with his perfect teeth.

"And how are you this morning, Madge?"

Madge can only muster a shrug. She's exhausted, not from any actually exertion, but more from the simple act of keeping her eyelids propped open. The good thing about the overnight shift is that at the end of it she's too tired to think. She's slept, dreamlessly, more over the past few days than she had in all the time since the bombing.

Finnick strolls in, stops at the dull metal table Madge's mother uses to roll out her candies, runs his finger along a scratch on the surface. "Enjoying the night shift?"

"It suits me," she tells him. At least during the night she doesn't have to deal with anyone else. She can drag herself through the long hours and mindless work then sleep through any possible interactions. It's a blessing really.

He eyes her skeptically, probably noting the dark circles under her eyes and the dullness of her skin. "Clearly."

Sighing, Madge presses her fingers to her eyes. "Can I help you?"

She isn't in the mood to be toyed with, especially by someone she barely knows.

A tight smile forms on his lips, not toothy, but a thin line.

"I was coming to see if I could persuade you to sneak me a few of those orange slice candies your mother makes. Annie really likes them."

It's too sweet a request to deny. Finnick and Annie have been inseparable since reuniting, holding hands and hiding away from all the prying eyes of their new home. It's one of the few pleasant stories to come out of the fiasco that the rescue in the Capitol had brought with it.

Unable and unwilling to deny him such a simple request, Madge goes to the storage closet where the extra candies are being stored with a small brown bag and fills it for him.

"Here." She hands it to him, barely stifling a wide yawn as she does.

He turns to leave and Madge goes back to the table to finish setting out the last few things when she hears him at the door.

"Madge?"

She turns with a frown. What else could he possibly want? She's already going to get in trouble if they notice any of the stock missing.

Chewing his lip, he walks slowly back to the table, sets the bag on it and leans towards her.

"Whatever he did, I know he only had your best interest at heart."

Mind sluggish, Madge just stares at him, unsure what he's even talking about.

"Haymitch," he finally clarifies when it becomes apparent she doesn't have the foggiest idea what he's bugging her over. "He-I know whatever he did to make you so upset with him, he didn't mean to hurt you."

Eyebrows arching, Madge doesn't respond, just continues to stare at him dully. She doesn't feel like discussing this at all, let alone with him.

"We-people do stupid things for the people we love. Sometimes it seems like we're being unfair, like we're deliberately trying to hurt them, but keeping them safe it-we have to do things-"

"Mr. Abernathy isn't trying to help me, Finnick," she cuts him off. "He's thinking about Katniss. She's the important one."

The important one to him, to Gale, to Peeta, to the country. Madge is a kitchen worker.

"It isn't a competition," he says softly.

"I didn't say it was." A competition would imply Madge had a chance, and she never had.

He stares at her, studies her flat expression for a minute, then sighs again, running his hands through his shaggy hair.

"He loves you. He's trying to keep you safe, maybe not the way you'd like him to, but in the best way he knows how." His arms cross over his chest and he glances down at the bag of candy.

"Annie is, well, you've seen her…I tried to keep her safe, because I love her more than anything in this world, by not telling her anything. I thought it might keep her safe if things fell apart, not knowing anything."

"It didn't though," Madge points out. "They still took her."

"But she didn't know anything. Torturing her was pointless-"

"Other than to hurt you-"

"Exactly."

They stare at one another for a minute before a sad smile slowly forms on his lips. "Peeta is their weapon. There's no telling who he might hurt next."

"He wouldn't even give me basic details. He tossed me out," Madge snaps.

Finnick closes his eyes. "Just because we don't handle things the best way, doesn't mean we aren't doing what we think is best."

Finnick's silence is only broken by the noise of the oncoming crew, moving tables and pulling out utensils, and then he opens his eyes and gives Madge a hard look.

"Even if you don't think he is, try to consider Peeta. How do you think he's going to feel if they get him back when he finds out what he did to Katniss? If he hurt anyone else it would be devastating."

Madge nods. That's something to hold onto, something she can get behind, helping Peeta.

Finally, he turns to go, picking up his bag of candy and giving it a small shake.

"Madge," he calls to her again when he reaches the door. "Life is fleeting, I think you know that. You don't want anything to happen to him and still be mad. Talk to him."

She frowns, his tone makes her uneasy. "What's going to happen to him in Thirteen?"

Finnick's eyebrows arch up. "Is he always going to be in Thirteen?"

With that he vanishes through the door, leaving Madge to consider his words. Her stomach drops. He was warning her.

#######

Madge runs.

Her lungs burn and she nearly careens into several people as she takes the corners, desperate to get back to the compartment before Mr. Abernathy leaves for the day, hoping she hadn't wasted too much time.

When the door comes into view as she flies down the final hall, her heart nearly stops as the flat metal of the door slides open and she sees Mr. Abernathy standing in his plain gray outfit just inside the frame.

He's turned slightly, talking to her mother just behind him, and he barely registers Madge coming at him before she almost knocks him to the ground in a tackle of a hug.

It must stun him, or maybe she's knocked the air out of him, because he doesn't respond for a moment or two, just stands there awkwardly as she squeezes him and hopes he can feel her apology in it.

"I'm sorry," she blubbers into his chest, tears and snot mingling as she tries to wipe them on her shoulder before they ruin his shirt. "I'm sorry, please don't go."

After a moment he wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek against her hair, shushing her and gently rubbing her back.

"Don't go, I was just mad. I didn't mean it," she sniffles. "I was just mad and-"

"Hush, Pearl," he whispers. "It's okay."

"No," she pulls back, wiping her nose and cheeks with her sleeve, "it isn't. You've always been so good to me and I was being ungrateful and entitled and-"

He pulls her back into a hug and tightens his arms around her, quieting her.

Her mother coughs behind them.

"I'm going to give you two some privacy," she tells them airily, breezing past and to the door before smiling softly back at them. She leaves without another word, the door sliding closed behind her.

Mr. Abernathy pulls her to the couch and sets her down before going to the kitchen and grabbing up a washrag.

Handing her the rag, he drops down beside her and watches her try to rub the last of her tears from her face before sighing and setting it in her lap.

"What's this nonsense about me leaving?" He finally asks.

Eyes burning, Madge glances at him before refocusing on folding and unfolding her rag.

"Finnick came by and he said-he made it sound like you were leaving." She feels more tears slide down her cheeks, drip onto her lap. "You aren't?"

He takes the rag and blots her cheek, shaking his head. "I'm not much use in the field. My value is here."

Madge nods, takes the rag back and sighs. He isn't leaving. He's going to be safe here with her.

She takes a shuddering breath and tries to steady herself.

"I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Abernathy," she finally manages to choke out. "I know you were just trying to keep me safe. I just-I just expected-and I know I shouldn't have because you aren't under any obligation to tell me anything-I just expected you to, because I was used-"

"Sweetheart," he reaches out and smoothes her wild, run blown hair down, "I should've known you wouldn't take being locked out of the loop well. I just-If you'd seen how he was during his episode-I didn't want you to be anywhere near that."

"I know," she mutters. And with her behavior she had proven that she probably wasn't mature enough to be trusted with any kind of delicate information. "You were right not to tell me. I've just felt so useless since coming here and it felt like you were cutting me off. I was being selfish and jealous."

He shakes his head. "No, I was being selfish."

She glances over at him, watches him run a hand over his face and sigh. He looks over at her, his eyes focusing on her face, taking in every tiny feature.

"Do you know what I see when I look at you?"

At the moment a snotty, puffy-eyed mess, but she doubts that's what he means. She shakes her head.

With a chuckle, he pushes a wild strand of hair over her shoulder.

"I see the baby Danny-boy had beside his desk in his office. I see the runny nosed little tot that could barely keep upright going up the stairs on her back porch, and the kid in the blue dress that brought me a birthday card and ate ice cream with me at night and told me about constellations." He looks away, studies the blank wall across from them. "You're all grown up and I didn't want to see it. You kept telling me and I just kept ignoring it because I wanted you to stay little, so I could protect you."

He leans into her, gives her a playful shove with his shoulder. "And what are you jealous for? Of who?"

Madge feels her face warm. "You know who."

His eyebrows pull together and he huffs. "I told you, you are still my favorite girl. Nothing changes that. Don't you forget it."

Madge leans over, rests her cheek against his shoulder and sniffles. He's probably the last person who'll see her in any of those ways, not including her mother, and she knows he means well. "Thank you."

He relaxes back into the couch and shifts, wraps his arm around her shoulder and presses a kiss into her greasy hair.

"I trust you more than anyone, don't ever doubt that. I'd trust you with my life if it came to it, but I look at you and at what's happening and I don't want to watch them destroy you." He tips her chin up and gives her a weak smile. "You're still my Pearl, whether you like it or not."

"It's not so bad," she tells him, her voice still thick and muffled.

She settles into his side, feeling warm and safe and loved, and lets her heavy eyelids slowly slide closed, waking several hours later tucked safely in bed.

#######

Over the next few days Mr. Abernathy is more forthcoming with information on Peeta, letting her know when they make small steps forward.

"They're trying to reprogram him again," he explains. "Prim suggested it. Pull the memories forward and give him morphling in large doses to counter act the tracker jacker venom."

Madge shivers, thinking about how the morphling had put her mother in a stupor when she'd taken it.

"Is that safe?"

He shrugs. "It doesn't seem to make much difference really. Other than making him extremely confused."

Madge watches her mother fiddling with the pair of knitting needles Mrs. Hawthorne had given her, trying desperately to replicate the pattern the other woman had taught to her, and bites her lip.

"There isn't anything else they can do?"

His red and pink streaked eyes settle on her and he gives her a mirthless smile.

"There aren't many people who've dealt with hijacking, Pearl. The scouts, the Victors who prepped families and gathered information, they had a little experience-"

"Like Birdy?" Madge frowns. "Why don't they just bring her in then? She'll help."

It seemed like such a simple solution.

"Hold up now, Pearl. I said they had a little experience. We talked to Bird and she assured us she didn't know how to undo it." He takes a long breath and then lets it out slowly. "Besides, she's stuck in Five helping with flooding. One of the largest dams that produces electricity was severely damaged during a bombing and she's working with the rebels there to evacuate the surrounding area before the Capitol comes back and takes it out completely."

"They would do that?" Madge looks back over at him. "They would ruin the infrastructure just to win? They need that electricity from the dam too."

He nods. "Yeah, but there are still smaller ones, plus the air turbines and who knows what else. They probably figure rebuilding it will be worth the loss if it ends the fighting in Five."

She doesn't doubt that the Capitol would think that way and she goes to sleep hoping the rebels are able to save the people around the dam.

#######

It takes some time, but she finally convinces Mr. Abernathy to let her talk to Peeta.

While he and several others, doctors and nurses and Mr. Heavensbee, all watch through a special mirror, Madge enters the room where Peeta has been spending his days.

They have him in shackles still, not willing to risk an episode with an innocent bystander in the room.

His eyes are lifeless, dull and deep in his head, and his mouth is flat, no flicker or recognition crosses his face.

"Peeta?"

He doesn't respond. Mr. Abernathy had warned her that her that Peeta had gone through extreme therapy during the day and was often exhausted at night, but this was beyond that. He was in a stupor, just like her mother had always been after a bad terror or a headache and they'd dosed her up for the night.

Madge drops into the uncomfortable chair across the room from him and watches his eyes.

"Oh, Peeta." This isn't him. He would hate this. He's a drugged up animal on display. An exhibit in a single occupant zoo.

She sits and waits, hums a song from when they'd been in school. The Valley Song.

After a few minutes he relaxes and his eyes become less fogged, he tilts his head and squints at her.

"Madge?"

She nods. "Do you remember me?"

He frowns. "Of course."

That earns him a little snort of laughter from her and after a beat a small smile twitches up on his lips.

"How are you feeling?" She asks as she gets to her feet and ventures a little closer to him, small step at a time.

His shoulders jerk. "I've been better."

"I imagine."

The conversation dies after a few seconds and they stare at each other for a minute or two before Peeta tilts his head slightly.

"Did-did your parents make it?" He finally asks.

Madge shakes her head and fights back tears. "My mom did. She's here, in Thirteen. They have her working in the kitchens, making candy like my Poppa did in the old sweet shop. Remember?"

A smile, a genuine smile, forms on Peeta's face. "Yeah. I liked the chocolate buttons."

Unable to keep her expression even, Madge grins. It's almost like a normal conversation. "I'll see if I can get you some. Sound good?"

He nods, still smiling. It falters for a second. "What about your dad?"

The mention of her father wipes the smile from Madge's face. She gives him a weak look.

"He didn't make it."

"She killed him," Peeta says instantly. "Katniss, she-she did it. She killed the Mayor-"

"Peeta," Madge cuts him off, firmly, like she'd so often had to do to her mother when she'd have fits of crying. "Katniss wasn't even there. My father died cutting the power to the District. So we could get the fence down. The Capitol killed him."

"No, she-"

"Peeta, no."

Their eyes stay focused on each other's, unblinking and steady. Madge isn't sure it will help, change a thing, but she feels like she needs to try.

"Peeta," she feels her eyes start to water again. "Peeta, please. Don't let them win. You're so much stronger than this. You can fight back. Please, Peeta, fight."

The faint glimmer of understanding, the few moments of real Peeta that had come through, are gone so quickly Madge almost doubts they even happed until she's out of the room, a screaming Peeta is sedated and retied to his bed, as she's taken into a room to review the conversation.

"You did real well, Pearl," Mr. Abernathy whispers into her ear as he settles her down in a dark room with several televisions set up along the walls.

"Marvelous, Miss Undersee, he seemed to be really listening to you there for a minute," Mr. Heavensbee tells her cheerfully as they watch the conversation over and over and over again, looking for triggers and changes.

The doctors chatter in a low hum, take down notes and ask her questions for hours before she's finally dismissed at nearly midnight.

Mr. Heavensbee stops them at the door. "Where are you going, Haymitch? We need you here to inspect the other tapes."

Mr. Abernathy growls. He's exhausted, anyone can see that, and Madge almost tells Mr. Heavensbee off for even suggesting it, but she's cut off by Mr. Abernathy's hand on her shoulder.

"I gotta walk my girl home. Lady doesn't need to be wandering these halls by herself at this time, you know that?"

"I'll take her," a deep voice comes from behind them.

Turning, Madge finds Gale standing only a few feet away.

He looks tired, his gray shirt and pants are a bit wrinkled, but otherwise he's unchanged from the last time she'd seen him when she tried to convince him not to go on the extraction mission.

"Over my dead body," Mr. Abernathy growls.

Mr. Heavensbee must not hear because he cheerfully takes up the offer for them.

"Good, good. Gale can walk Miss Undersee back to the compartment and we can finish up. Very good."

Before Mr. Abernathy can say any different Madge has been yanked from his side and shoved at Gale, then steered between the rows of beds before finding herself out in the empty hall, Gale at her side.

Madge looks around feeling a bit disoriented, then feels her face begin to warm when she spots Gale staring at her.

His eyes are steady, just as stormy a gray as ever, but darker in the almost nonexistent light of the hall, and a shiver goes up Madge's back as she turns away and starts down the hall.

He catches up with her easily, stays at her side for several quiet minutes before he sighs.

"Ignoring me?"

Madge raises her eyebrows and glances at him. "What's there to talk about?"

"Mellark," he offers. "He did good with you in there. That's the longest he's lasted."

Before she can stop herself, Madge asks, "Disappointed?"

He stops and after a second, Madge does too.

She can't quite pinpoint the expression on his face, somewhere between hurt and disappointed, and she instantly regrets speaking to him at all. She should have ignored him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" His eyebrows pull together as he scowls at her.

Honestly? She isn't really sure. He'd gone into the Capitol, risked his life for Peeta, to bring him back for Katniss. Part of Gale probably did want him to get better.

Madge is also intimately familiar with jealousy. As often as she's felt it boil in her she knows Gale he's felt that same burning against Peeta.

"Peeta's broken, Gale." She shrugs. "He may never get put back together again."

She doesn't say it, but she thinks he hears the 'you win' she implies.

"You think that's what I want?" His voice holds a hint of accusation.

Madge shakes her head. She doesn't think Gale is quite that cruel, but he loves Katniss.

"It simplifies things, doesn't it?'

His scowl softens into something less cold, almost confused.

"Not really," he finally says, his hand rubbing at his neck. "Katniss is so broken up over him she ran off to Two."

As little as she wants to comfort him, Madge can't watch him hurt. It just isn't in her.

Reaching out, she awkwardly pats his shoulder before taking her hand quickly back, knotting her fingers together in front of her.

"A lot has happened to her. She just needs time. She'll come back." She'll come back to you.

"I wanted Peeta to be dead," he says suddenly. "When we went in. I figured it would be for the best, for everyone. There was no way he'd be right after everything, and I was right." His eyes close. "But then Katniss would feel guilty, she'd blame herself…so it was good he was alive. The way he is though…"

He laughs, a bitter little thing, before settling his eyes on Madge.

"I did think it would make things simpler. You've got me pegged I guess. I'm just that bad a person."

Madge shakes her head and starts to tell him that no, he isn't that bad, she is. It was her own experiences she was drawing from, but he continues on.

"We're both wrong though, I guess. It's just made things more complicated."

Madge swallows a lump that's formed in her throat. "Love isn't simple. You can't just turn off how you feel about someone."

She knows that more than anyone.

"Yeah," he mumbles, letting his hand drop from his neck as he closes his eyes. "I thought if Katniss just chose me it would make things easier on me. Make my mind up."

It takes a second for Madge to process what he's said, and when she does, she frowns, first at the ground, then up at him.

"Make up your mind?"

For an uncertain few seconds she doesn't realize what's happening, that he's closed the small space between them and leaned in. It isn't until his rough hands are on her cheeks and his lips, chapped and warm and tasting of coffee, press gently against her that her mind begins to function again.

Don't stop.

She feels him start to back away, his hands start to lose contact and his lips stop being quite so firm against hers, and she panics, grabs him by the front of his day old gray shirt and holds him in place.

It must be the confirmation he needs, that he isn't overstepping, because he leans back in, more eager than before.

As Madge's hands travel up his shirt, tangle in his thick hair, his hands wrap around her waist.

Somehow they end up against the chilly metal wall, Madge's back pressed almost painfully against it as Gale's hands wander lower, fingers tugging on the scratchy material of her pillowcase dress and hiking it, inch by inch, up her legs.

They slide down the wall, Gale firmly settling between Madge's legs, her dress bunched up at her waist, his hands, calluses scraping against the skin of her thighs as he runs them up and down the exposed skin.

He kisses down her neck, pushing the saggy neckline of her dress out of the way and nipping at the skin on her shoulder, raking his teeth over her it, before making a needful noise and returning to her mouth.

It isn't until she's almost on the floor, Gale pressed obscenely against her and one of his hands up the back of her dress and unsnapping the latch on her bra that she even realizes how far things have gone.

She stills under him, her mind racing.

He's only using her. She's his poor substitute, a malleable, weak willed girl he can toy with until Katniss comes back and reminds him that he loves her and only her. Madge will be used up and tossed away, never having meant a thing to him.

Part of her doesn't care, even if a bigger part of her knows she should.

In this moment, maybe, he wants her. Madge can give him something Katniss can't, and it's such a rare occurrence that she wants to snatch it up, no matter how much it will hurt in the harsh light of day.

Gale must feel her stop, because his kisses slow, the heat between them starts to evaporate, and he pulls back, the hand at her back freezing. His eyes are dark and hungry, wanting, but he frowns. "Madge?"

Her heart cracks.

She can't let him. Her conscience won't allow it. It would hurt Katniss and, if she's being completely honest, it would hurt Gale. He wouldn't go out of his way to hurt her, not anymore, and she doesn't want to give him the opportunity.

He doesn't love Madge and she can't give him the opportunity to hurt all of them.

Madge reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, enjoys the texture of it mingled with his sweat, memorizing it and the crush of his body against hers. "Gale…"

Even without telling him, he knows.

For a few minutes they stay there, Madge pinned under his warm body, pressed to the surely filthy floor of the hall, both hesitant to move.

Finally, though, Gale sits up, still between Madge's legs as he takes her hand and pulls her up with him.

It's an empty, raw feeling, the cold air settling over her body and worming into all the exposed skin that Gale's body had so recently been warming and to distract herself Madge begins pushing her dress back down, trying to smooth out the very obvious wrinkles, adjusting her panties a bit as she does.

"I'm sorry."

Looking up, Gale's hand reaches out and he brushes some of her mussed hair behind her ear.

Madge tries to shrug, tries to look unfazed and calm even though her insides are in a jumble.

"It's okay." She forces a small smile. "I'm not the one you want. I can't do that to anyone."

Gale's eyes study her face, trace a line from her eyes to her lips, hover there for a breath before he sighs.

"You don't understand." He rubs his eyes. "I love Katniss, but I don't know if I'm really in love with Katniss or if I just want to be. She's my hunting partner, we mesh, or at least we used to. It makes sense."

He sucks in a breath. "I don't know if I'm in love or jealous or both, it's so damn confusing, and then there's you…"

Madge's heart stops. "Me?"

A small smile, not really happy but not quite sad, tugs at Gale's lips. "You. I don't know what I feel for you. I like you, but…maybe it's just…"

As he stares off at the empty hall, searching for his words, Madge has already found them.

"Lust," she finishes for him.

He sighs. "Lust."

At least he's honest.

Nodding, Madge feels her chin start to quiver. For the briefest second she'd had a little hope, that maybe he might harbor some feeling for her that she could live with.

She's certain that on her side it's more than hormones and primal needs, but the fact that Gale even questions it settles it in her mind. For him it's lust. She's positive.

"I'll walk myself the rest of the way," she says quietly as she turns to leave, but Gale catches her by the wrist.

"Wait, just wait." He watches her for a minute, then shakes his head. "I don't think it is, okay? I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's lust. You don't care what happens to people you're lusting after, you don't worry about hurting their feelings, it's just a need trying to be filled, and this is more than that. It's just another complication."

Madge bites her tongue but can't keep her words in. "Well I'm sorry Peeta and I had to make things so hard on you by not conveniently dying. I'll be a little more thoughtful next time."

It's a bit unfair to say, she knows that, he's being honest, but her body is frustrated with her, aching, and she can't seem to muster up her sympathy.

"That isn't what I meant and you know it," he growls.

"Well that's what it sounded like," she snaps, swatting at her face, brushing the frustrated tears away before they can get too far down her cheeks. "I'm going."

As she turns she hears Gale's voice behind her, soft and broken sounding. "I'm sorry."

She wants to ignore him, but she's weak and even if he isn't sure she is. She loves him and she can't ignore him, no matter how much he hurts her.

"I'm sorry I'm hurting you, Madge. I don't want to, it's the last thing I want to do. I care about you." He sighs in frustration, looks at her weakly. "Have you ever been in love?"

Madge doesn't say anything, she doesn't feel like she can. Telling him she thinks she loves him sounds desperate and pathetic, and she feels both of those things enough already.

"Do you think you can love two people?"

A sad sort of smile pulls Madge's lips up. "What do you think?"

It's what her father always did to her, made her answer her own questions. He told her it made the mind sharper.

"You learn more when you do it yourself," his words echo in her head, and for the first time since the bombing, his memory doesn't take her breath away. It comforts her.

He frowns at her, probably thinking of Katniss and Peeta, all the turmoil their respective feelings have caused, and sighs.

"Maybe," Gale finally says. "But people aren't very good at sharing, there'd always be an inequality. We have to make choices."

Even if they're hard.

Madge gives him a small smile. She doesn't want there to have to be a choice. Part of her wants the fairytale, for him to look at her and just know that he loves her. That's a fantasy though, and her life has been anything but a fantasy. Childhood illusions are beyond her.

Love is hard. It shouldn't be a competition, but somehow that's how it feels, and she hates it because while she's good at games, she never wanted her love life to be one.

Reaching out, Madge runs her hand along his jaw, his stubble prickling her fingertips as she tries to memorize the texture. It isn't hers to have, but she wishes it were.

Popping up on her toes, Madge grazes her lips over his jaw, just barely making contact before dropping back on her heels and giving him a feebly flickering smile.

"There's your answer then."

Before he cans say anything Madge turns on her heels and runs.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for putting up with me.

Gale leaves the next day, after his attempt to walk Madge home, after their kissing and his admittance that he feels something for her, even if he can't define exactly what it is.

It's a few more days before she has anything else to think about.

Madge settles down onto the couch, in the very early hour of the morning after she gets off work, as Mr. Abernathy explains to her about what happened in District Two.

"They collapsed the mountain?" She feels queasy. It's too horrible and she can't imagine Katniss agreeing to it. "We did that?"

He runs his hand over his face. "It's war, sweetheart."

Shaking, Madge pulls her legs to her chest as he goes on, tells her the rest of the disaster.

Katniss had been shot and was being brought back to Thirteen. She'd lost a lot of blood and there's no telling how long she'll be out of commission this time.

"We should've been more careful," he mutters, more to himself than her, and she's inclined to agree. They were playing with the life of a teenage girl, and not playing very well.

He sits on the couch with her, twirling a strand of her pale hair between his dark fingers as she dozes on and off until it's time to see her mother off to the kitchens.

She sleeps restlessly, her mind filled with falling mountains and dying mockingjays instead of her dying father and firebombs, until she's flipped, rather roughly, to the floor of her and her mother's room.

"Mr. Abernathy!" She shouts as she flails under a mess of sheets and blankets. She freezes when she hears laughing.

Carefully she unwinds the blankets and peaks out, only to find someone small and browned, dirty blonde hair and wicked smile, sitting on her bed.

"That was fun," Birdy says with a grin. "Good morning, sunshine."

#######

Birdy refuses to tell Madge anything until she gets up and gets ready. There are things to be done.

"We got places to go and people to piss off. You know, the usual."

"Why do you need me?" Madge asks from the bathroom as she pulls on a clean pillowcase dress and combs through her wet hair.

"Well, I need at least one person not gunning for me when the shit hits the fan," Birdy answers from somewhere in the kitchenette.

When Madge emerges from bedroom Birdy has crawled up onto the cabinets and is searching through the upper shelves. She turns, looking unimpressed.

"No liquor." She closes the door with a snap. "I've never been so disappointed in another human being as I am right now."

"They don't allow drinks," Madge explains.

Birdy rolls her eyes, as though that isn't an excuse, before gesturing to the door.

When they get down the small side hall, into the main corridor, Birdy garners more than her fair share of looks.

She isn't dressed lavishly, in fact, compared to some of the things Madge has seen on her she's very plain indeed. It's the complete otherness of her that seems to draw people's attention.

Brown pants, smeared with something rust colored, a snapped up shirt, such a dark green that it's almost black in the poor underground lighting, and a worn looking coat that almost touches the ground. Against the sea of gray she's practically florescent.

"I heard you were in Five," Madge tries to make conversation, cut through the murmuring around them as they push toward Birdy's unknown destination.

"Five, Four, Six, Nine, and home," she shrugs. "Floods and fires. Almost drowned. Damn dam. Still better than the stampede, that was interesting to say the least."

Madge isn't sure interesting is the word she'd use.

They make a final turn and Madge realizes where they are, though they'd come a way she'd never taken before.

Without explanation, Birdy pulls her through the metallic doors.

They stop inside, Birdy looking around curiously.

"Now, where's the boy?"

Madge frowns. "Boy?"

"Peeta Mellark," Birdy clarifies. "I need to see him."

Before Madge can ask her why, she's taken off toward the back of the wing, towards where Peeta's room, his cell, is.

They breeze past several harried looking nurses wrestling with a man that had apparently thrown his meal at the wall across from him. Gray mush is still sliding down the wall when Madge and Birdy walk by.

"It doesn't even look like food." Birdy sticks her tongue out. "I mean, I've eaten some questionable things in my life, but…"

They wind through the beds, back to Peeta's room, only to be stopped by a soft gasp.

Turning, they find Prim, standing in her hospital uniform, staring at Birdy in shock.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, making sure to keep the little metal table she'd been working at between them.

Birdy shrugs. "I heard it was five star dining and just had to come see."

Prim doesn't seem to catch the joke, just continues to stare at her.

Finally, Birdy sighs. "I came to see the person who started this show. Figured I should apologize for everything."

Prim's face lights up. "Oh, Katniss!"

Confusion momentarily flicks across Birdy's face. "Who?"

At Prim's affronted look, Birdy seems to realize what she's said, though Madge thinks it's probably just a put-on. "Oh, her. No, actually, I came to see the brains of the operation."

Madge cuts in. "She wants to see Peeta."

Prim doesn't seem to understand, but nods anyway. "I doubt they'll let you in. He's scheduled for therapy with the psychologist soon."

"They can trade one psycho for another I imagine," Birdy says with a shrug, starting back towards the room where Peeta is kept.

Prim trails after them, and when they get to the door, jumps ahead and tells the guard to let them in. She gives Madge a small look, as if to say 'is this a good idea?', before turning back to the main part of the hospital.

The doctors are sitting around, discussing things and looking over papers when they realize someone has entered their domain.

"Who are you?"

Birdy strides across the room and pays them little attention, doesn't answer their question, and when one of them steps in front of her she rolls her eyes and kicks his feet out from under him, sending him sprawling onto the floor.

"Amateur," she mumbles, stepping over him and opening Peeta's door. It clicks ominously as she keys in the code and slides it shut.

Frantically, the doctors try to open it, but she's obviously overridden their codes.

"Get someone down here," one of them yells before looking at Madge. "Miss Undersee, who is that?"

Madge is so surprised at being recognized-she's only been allowed to be in this room a couple of times-that it takes her a second to answer. "Bir-Phoebe Alameda."

The doctor looks through the window into Peeta's room.

Peeta, who had been painting, though his legs are still shackled to the far wall, has stopped mid-stroke and is staring curiously at his new visitor.

"Do I know you?" He asks, clearly racking his brain. Maybe he remembers her from watching tapes.

Birdy shakes her head then takes a few steps and holds out her hand. "Birdy."

He stares at her hand for a moment before wiping some paint onto his pants and taking it. "Peeta."

She smiles, steps back and crosses her arms. "So, how's it going?"

He doesn't answer her for a beat, just stares at her curiously. She's probably the first person that hasn't come to talk to him and treated him like a rabid dog since his arrival in Thirteen.

Finally, his lips twitch up at the sides. "Oh, you know, living the dream."

Birdy laughs, genuinely amused by his answer.

Peeta's smile grows, and a little chuckle rumbles out of his chest.

"Oh, Peeta," Birdy begins as her laughter trickles to a stop, "you really would've done well with us. I wasn't wrong about that."

His mind seems to come alive and his eyes light, as something clicks in his head. "You're a Victor."

Her smile brightens and she taps the end of her nose, then points to him.

His smile fades though. "Why are you here?"

Taking deliberate steps around him, Birdy keeps her eyes trained on Peeta. "I needed to ask you a question."

When his eyebrows arch up Birdy tilts her head and studies him, reaches out and wipes a fleck of paint from his face.

"I wanted them to save you," she tells him. "I wanted you to win in the Seventy-Fourth, you know?"

Peeta's eyebrows pull together and his mouth settles into a line. "Why?"

The little laugh that echoes through the room is hollow.

"I'm selfish." Her smile falls and her eyes drop to her feet. "I'm good at reading people and I saw you and how genuinely good you are, how you see the good in others." She sighs. "I wanted you to win because I wanted you to see the good in me. I wanted a friend."

She drops onto the little chair against the wall, elbows to knees and hides her face in her hands. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

Peeta, the old Peeta, seems to resurface. His expression becomes unguarded as he takes a few steps, stretching his tether to the max and reaching his hand out to her. "We can still be friends."

Madge isn't sure what the point to Birdy's game is, and she wonders if she'll get to find out before the doctors get the reinforcements to the hospital to open the door.

Reaching out, Birdy takes Peeta's hand, gives it a squeeze. "Then it's time for my question."

She stands, looks up at Peeta, holding his gaze, then speaks.

"Do you want to get better?"

His eyebrows pull together and he frowns. "Is there a choice?"

"There isn't always, but I've been in the business of taking peoples' choices away for so long that I wanted to make that one of the changes in my life. If we're going to have a revolution I might as well redo myself while I'm at it."

Peeta looks down at his hand, still held in Birdy's and asks, "Because it's my head?"

Birdy nods. "It's your head. You've already had people mucking around in there, I think you should get the right to tell me if you want us to do more. If you want us to hijack you back."

Madge watches as Peeta takes his hand back, studies his fingers and chews his lip. Then looks up at her, a sort of dark determination in his eyes. "Why?"

Popping up on her toes, Birdy leans into him, whispering something into his ear.

His eyes focus on the wall as she drops back, smiling up at him and he starts to say something, but before Madge can make out just what it is, dozens of people flood in and she's pulled from the room.

#######

"What exactly were you doing with Mr. Mellark?" President Coin asks Birdy.

They've been stuffed into the little room that Madge had spoken to Mr. Heavensbee and yelled at Mr. Abernathy in. It's starting to get unbearably warm with the crush of people now in it.

Madge is tucked against the wall, behind Mr. Abernathy who'd just managed to keep her from being tossed from the hospital wing again. Mr. Heavensbee and his assistant Fulvia are pressed into the opposite corner and Gale and Mr. Latier are nearest the door.

President Coin and Birdy are at the little table, across from one another, and Madge can't quite work out whose dislike is greater.

"I was asked if I could help him. I think I can, but I wanted to speak with him first."

"You could've set up an appointment."

Birdy, who has her boots up on the table and is picking at some of the dried mud at her heel looks up mildly. "Oops."

"Oops?" President Coin takes a long breath, her nostrils flaring and her eyes narrowing. "You were supposed to check in and attend the meeting this afternoon, seeing as you called for the meeting in the first place."

"Yes, and look at that." Birdy glances at her watch. "I finished with Peeta just in time."

Pulling her foot from the table and wiping the chunks of dirt from the top, Birdy pulls her ratty bag from under the table.

How did-

Madge almost groans. She'd planned this. Of course she did.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

President Coin's eyebrows arch up. "You want to do it here?"

"My time is precious. It's now or never."

Letting out a long, agitated breath, President Coin turns her head and glares at Madge. "Soldier Undersee, this is a closed meeting. You don't have clearance. You'll need to leave."

"Oh no! She might hear what dicks you all are!" Birdy throws her hands up in mock terror. Her hands drop and she rolls her eyes. "I'm pretty sure she could've figured that out on her own."

Madge starts to back out, she doesn't want to cause any trouble, but Birdy makes a hissing noise and she freezes in place.

Making sure not to look at President Coin, Madge shields herself behind Mr. Abernathy again. He glances back at her and she gives him a tight smile. He doesn't return it, just turns back to the room and stares darkly at Birdy.

Birdy isn't paying him any attention though; she's already started digging through her ratty bag, head half in it.

"I'm here, as you all may not know, because for some reason you people seem hell-bent on killing some of our best resources." She pulls out a file, plain and beige, from her bag and tosses it onto the table in front of her. Her triumphant expression sours. "I'm starting to get just a smidge put-out."

"Phoebe," Mr. Heavensbee begins, "this is war. There are acceptable losses."

"Acceptable to you, but not to me. Especially when they're avoidable," Birdy counters. "If you'd be just a little patient and let us try we could do things without so much bloodshed."

It's a bit of a shock, to hear Birdy, who'd been threatening to kill people almost since the minute Madge met her without apology, telling the architects of the war their actions are too costly and to have patience. The world has turned on its head.

"You'd like us to have negotiations with the enemy?" Gale suddenly speaks up, his eyes dark and focused on Birdy, ready at the defensive.

She doesn't smile, not wickedly or otherwise, just stares flatly at him. "I would. Because you know what? When, if this thing ends, the enemy will be part of this country too. It'd be in our best interest not to create our own undoing like the Capitol has."

Her words settle over the room, but it's clear they aren't really being considered thoughtfully when Mr. Heavensbee chortles.

"You've become a sentimentalist, my child." He smiles, a bit condescendingly at her. "You know as well as anyone that sometimes things simply have to be done. Our people on the inside knew the risks when they took the jobs."

"They knew there were risks, but this was reckless." She shakes her head. "Would you want your life lost when there were other options? Just for expediency's sake?"

"I would," Gale growls. "I would do just about anything to beat the Capitol."

For half a breath Birdy stares at him, as though she's seeing him for the first time. Her eyes widen and her mouth seems to flatten out.

Finally, she lets out a long breath. "You'd die, even if there were other options?"

"Waiting wasn't an option," he snaps. "Every second counted."

A look of utter contempt rolls across her features. "Then you're an even more selfish bastard than I thought."

He starts to fight back, but Birdy is already done with him, turning her back to him, eyes hard as they focus on the table.

"That stunt with the mountain, these-" she pulls several papers from her file and stares at them for a few seconds before throwing them to the table in disgust "-these bombs you've come up with…this is Capitol thinking."

Gale crosses his arms over his chest, glares at her back. "We're fighting fire with fire. We're using their playbook against them-"

"Then what makes us any better than them?" She snaps, slinging the plans away so that they float uselessly to the floor. "If we're just going to mimic them then why bother fighting at all?"

"Because we're better than them!" Gale shouts.

"How?" Birdy's looks coolly at him. "If we're going to kill people who are scared and just doing what's natural to a frightened animal, if-" she points to the plans scattered on the table "we're going to murder medics and rescuers, how are we better than the Capitol?"

She drops into her chair, glaring darkly out at the occupants of the room. "I don't want to be a part of this war if all we're doing is setting up the preamble for the next seventy-five years and another war."

The room goes quiet and Madge glances around, wishing she could peak into their heads and see what they're thinking.

On one hand she understands that this is war, bad things happen, people with no interest in fighting are killed and others sacrifice themselves, but on the other hand…

She looks to the floor, at the plans scattered there. This bomb, the destruction of the mountain in Two, these aren't just fighting and accidentally killing a few. These are deliberate actions, painfully familiar actions, and that settles like a stone in her stomach.

Finally, President Coin sits forward, crossing her arms over the table and fixing Birdy in her cold stare.

"Soldier Alameda," she begins, a chilly smile forming on her lips, "you know that sometimes things must be done and the consequences dealt with later, for the greater good. This isn't a philosophical battle, it's a real one."

Birdy doesn't even look up, just flips through the file in front of her, eyes dead in her face as she pulls a stack of pictures out and tosses them on the table.

"These are the spies that've been killed while you've been doing things for the greater good," she tells no one in particular. "People with families and lives and futures. I was friends with some of them. They were good people and they didn't have to die."

She looks up, mouth in a sharp frown. "I know the cost of doing things for the greater good. My district is a study in trying to use the Capitol's mentality to win against them, and what did that get us? Turned into a training ground for their most ruthless Peacekeepers."

"And what would Johanna Mason say? About ruthlessness and hypocrisy?"

Birdy pales but her expression is unchanging. She looks around the room, frowns at Mr. Abernathy and then at Mr. Latier before sighing.

"I've done a lot of bad things, more than I can remember, and Mason would probably tell you to string me up. I'm the worst of the worst." She swallows thickly and closes her eyes. "And she wouldn't be wrong. I'm an awful person, the worst really, I won't deny that. But all the things I did were because I had no choice or because I was confused, and even that doesn't excuse them."

"We had to do it," Gale growls. "If we didn't they'd have kept rolling out hovercrafts and who knows what else. We had to cut it off at the legs."

"Maybe you're right, Dorothy," Birdy says evenly, her wicked smile creeping back onto her face. "I showed great restraint not killing you, and look where that's gotten us."

She sits forward and sighs, her expression settling back into something unreadable and her hands flat to the table. Looking around, her eyes narrow on everyone standing around the room.

"Let the mistakes of the past be the warning. You think you're better than them, then be better than them."

With that she looks back at President Coin and her eyes harden.

"For the time being, the regional governments-in-exile would like to be informed if you plan on any more creative tactics, Ms. Coin."

Birdy's voice is clipped, almost like the affected Capitol accent Madge remembers the kids in school making fun of, and she wonders if it was to make a point or not.

President Coin's eyes narrow. "President Coin, Soldier Alameda."

"You're not my president, lady, and I am not your soldier," Birdy answers as she stands.

"Not yet."

Birdy simply rolls her eyes.

As the room thrums in silence, Birdy gathers her papers, the photos and the plans from the floor and begins stuffing them back into her bag.

"Soldier Alameda, this meeting isn't over," President Coin tells her. "Please sit back down."

The 'please' sounds more like 'now' and there's an implied 'or else' at the end of the sentence, to Madge, but Birdy either doesn't hear it or doesn't care. She gives the woman a flat look.

"I've said my part, what I was asked to say, and now I'm going. I'm leaving soon." Her eyes settle on Gale and her wicked smile reemerges, the lull in her sniping at him has come to an end. "Unlike some of you, I'm out in the field, doing actual work, not playing hide the sausage with my cousin in storage closets."

Gale's color deepens and his eyes narrow. The rest of the room shifts uncomfortably, except for Mr. Abernathy, who chuckles a little before catching the stricken look on Madge's face.

Triumphantly, Birdy snatches up her bag and heads for the door.

"Soldier Alameda," President Coin says again. "How did you get the plans for that bomb?"

Birdy almost ignores it, her hand is up at the keypad on the door, but her little grin widens and Madge gets the impression she's excited to play at being more clever than everyone else once more.

Barely tossing a glance over her shoulder, Birdy's smile tugs up.

"Ms. Coin, if you all insist on acting like the Capitol, then why shouldn't I?"

#######

"Damn girl," Mr. Abernathy grumbles as he walks Madge back down the hall to their compartment. "What did she think she was doing?"

Madge isn't sure, but she has a guess, though she isn't sure he's in the mood to hear it.

"She's getting sloppy," he counters. "She's better than this. Playing people is what she does."

"She's upset," Madge points out. "Can you blame her?"

The cause they're fighting for is being tainted by an unscrupulous group, string pullers and power seekers, and Madge can see why Birdy is pushing back. Replacing the corrupt government with one just as bad isn't much of a reason to change.

"We need them," Mr. Abernathy tells her, his voice low. "We can't risk losing their support just yet."

"And when the war ends?" Madge stops in her tracks. "When this is over who is going to run this country?"

She doubts President Coin will allow a peaceful transition of power, for elections to be held and for the people that have put their lives on the line to choose the new government.

There's going to be a vacuum of power, and President Coin is poised to fill it.

Mr. Abernathy stops, rubs his face as he turns back to Madge. "Sweetheart, we can't think about all that right now."

"Then when?"

He stares at her helplessly. He doesn't have the answer.

Gently, he takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Don't worry about all that, Pearl. One disaster at a time, alright?"

Despite his placations, Madge still feels a knot forming in her stomach. If she'd have stayed as Mr. Abernathy's assistant she'd have seen what was happening. Maybe she'd be able to think more clearly about what the solution should be.

As it is though, she feels a bit blindsided.

Mr. Abernathy drops her off at the door to the compartment, kisses her cheek and tells her to get some more sleep and that he'll bring her dinner to her later, before trotting back off to plot and plan.

After he's vanished, down the hall and around the corner, Madge keys in her code and the door swishes open. She sighs.

"Birdy?" She squints into the room. All the lights are on. "Mr. Abernathy left."

The cabinets on the far side of kitchenette counter clatter and after a few minutes Birdy stands up, trying to adjust her hair.

Madge's eyebrows arch. "Why the cabinets?"

Birdy shrugs. "Would you have looked for me there?"

Since the answer is a firm 'no', Madge just presses her fingers to her eyes and tries to stop getting in the head of someone who is clearly in the realm of insanity.

Flopping onto the couch, Birdy pulls a dry looking stick from her pocket and offers it to Madge. "Jerky?"

Madge crosses her arms and gives Birdy a scrutinizing look. "Did you come all this way just to upset everyone?"

Birdy snorts. "As much as I'd like that to be my life, it's a bit impractical, isn't it?"

Madge wouldn't know. The workings of the outside world are foreign to her at the moment. For all she knows Birdy may have her own private hovercraft sitting in one of Thirteen's many docks.

"Well it wasn't very productive," Madge points out.

"I didn't expect it to be." Birdy shrugs. "It wasn't my main reason for coming here, only an unfortunate side job to get me in so I could do my main mission."

Madge nods. "Helping Peeta."

"No." Birdy shakes her head. "Sadly, also just a side job."

Frowning, Madge lets her arms loosen around herself a little. She's almost afraid to ask. "Well, what is it?"

"To recruit you," Birdy answers simply. She smiles at Madge. "Unless you're having the time of your life making candies with your mother."

Madge can only stare at her, she can't possibly be serious.

"Me?" What could she possibly do?

"You," Birdy repeats. "I think you'd be a great resource. You're good with patterns and codes aren't you? And you're familiar with Capitol communications. You'd come with me and work in the Transfer Station, combing through communications and weeding out information."

Madge tries to steady her breathing. It's more than she could've hoped for. With one word she can leave Thirteen, her miserable and pointless job, and actually do something for the rebellion.

She could be useful.

Her elation dies in her chest almost immediately.

"I can't," she tells her miserably. "My mother-"

"Will be fine." Birdy waves her hand. "First off, that woman bashed Romulus Thread with a frying pan, she's not as helpless as she makes out. Second of all, Mr. Haymitch will keep an eye on her down here."

"I can't ask him to do that," Madge wrings her hands in front of her.

Birdy rolls her eyes and mutters, "I don't think that's going to be what he fights with you over."

Madge doesn't argue with her, just drops down beside her and picks at her dress.

She hadn't thought about it before, but leaving Thirteen would be a blessing. Getting away from Gale and Katniss, the Hawthornes, all her pointless candy making, it would give her purpose, which is something she desperately needs.

Staring at her hands, Madge pulls at a loose string, twists it around her finger until it hurts.

"This is why you wanted me there, isn't it?" She finally asks. "You wanted me to see what's going on."

Looking over, she sees the tiny nod.

Birdy knows that Madge is feeling useless, that her time in Thirteen has been a severe disappointment as far as being a source of help is concerned. She's prodding a raw wound in the hopes of getting a response, and Madge knows she's on the right track.

Taking a long breath, Madge lets the string unfurl around her finger. She looks over at Birdy.

"When do we leave?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Once again, many thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for the help.

Madge finds her mother just where she's supposed to be, fluttering around in the kitchen and humming to herself.

She looks up, eyes distant but bright as she smiles at Madge.

"Oh, love, did you come to cook with me?"

Madge shakes her head. "No, mom. I need to talk to you."

It takes less than ten minutes for Madge to go over the day's events, and then explain to her mother her plans to leave Thirteen.

Her mother goes quiet, sits on one of the metal stools at the work table and stares into the distance for several minutes before sighing.

Madge expects her to burst into tears, dissolve into hysterics, but instead she just turns her hazy blue eyes on Madge and smiles.

"Oh, love, I always knew you were meant for bigger things." She reaches out and pats Madge's cheek, chin trembling slightly. "Promise me you'll be safe."

Unable to keep from it, Madge lunges forward and throws her arms around her mother, presses her face into her shoulder and inhales the scent of sugar clinging to her. Tears almost start to escape her eyes, but she blinks them back.

"Thank you."

Because without her mother's approval Madge doesn't think she would be able to do this.

Pulling back, her mother presses a kiss to Madge's cheek.

"Thank you for asking," she whispers. "I know you didn't have to. You've been past the point of needing my permission for so long, I'm just glad you let me even pretend to have a say."

"Mom-"

Her mother presses a finger to Madge's lips. "You and I both know I've not been much of a mom, love."

Nodding, Madge tries to force a smile, but it turns into a grimace as her face crumbles. She falls forward, hiding her face in her mother's shoulder again.

Smoothing Madge's hair down, her mother hums a little song for her until the timer goes off on the candies.

#######

"Where've you been?" Madge asks when Birdy turns up in the kitchen after a few hours, past when Madge's mother has gone back to the compartment.

"Discussing treatment plans for Mr. Mellark."

Madge almost drops the bowl she's been licking the chocolate out of. "What?"

Arching one eyebrow, Birdy smiles. "Well, you didn't think I was going to do all that stomping around and grandstanding for nothing did you?" The silence that punctuates the question must answer it for her. She frowns, then shrugs. "Yeah, alright, I guess that does seem like something I'd do."

She flops down at the table and dips her finger into the bowl, scraping a little chocolate up.

When she doesn't elaborate, Madge crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. "Well?"

Birdy sticks her finger in her mouth and smiles, as if asking 'well what?'

Still edgy in anticipation of what her talk with Mr. Abernathy is going to entail, Madge huffs. "Don't be dense, just tell me what the plan is with Peeta."

Running her finger along the edge of the bowl, Birdy covers her finger again and grins. "Okay, don't get your standard issue panties in a knot."

Sitting back on the stool, straightening her back, Birdy crosses her arms. "Alright."

When they contacted Birdy, back when they'd first realized what had happened to Peeta, she'd told them the truth, she had no idea what to do for Peeta.

"The only time I'd seen it used it killed Wi-the guy instantly," she explains. "It was a theoretical method, never successfully used as far as I knew. I was impressed Peeta'd survived. They must've improved their techniques."

She'd been interested in his progress though, kept an eye on it and what the doctors in Thirteen were doing with him.

"How?" Madge leans in, uncertain if anyone could possibly be listening in.

Birdy pulls back. "Take a step back."

"What if someone is listening?" Madge frowns, eyes tracing along the doorframe behind Birdy.

"Naw," Birdy dismisses it with a wave. "This place has too much interference in the walls for listening devices. I've tried. Plus my sources tell me the population here is so docile they don't even feel the need to monitor anyone. Stupid really."

That doesn't comfort Madge much, but she nods and takes up the seat next to Birdy.

"Anyway, when I heard what they were trying with the morphling, I thought, 'well, that's actually a pretty good idea'."

"It isn't working though," Madge points out.

"No, but not because the logic isn't sound." Birdy picks up a spoon and considers it for a minute before stuffing it in her mouth, pulling it out, completely cleaned of chocolate. "They just aren't using the right trigger, so to speak."

During her years in the Capitol, Birdy had been friends with people working in the medical field, and they were often recruited for the President's 'special resources'. Torture.

"Tracker jacker venom is potent. It affects the brain in ways that I don't really understand." She tosses the spoon back into the bowl. "What I did understand is the strength of it."

Morphling would work, but it would be inconsistent, and it has major side-effects. Madge is all too aware of those.

"So what did you suggest?"

Leaning onto the table, Birdy taps out a tune on the metal top, thinking.

"I talked with some doctors, from the Capitol that are on our side and we managed to smuggle out before things went completely south, and they explained a bunch of things to me."

Madge nods, urges her on, but Birdy just shrugs.

"What? I said they explained it, not that I understood it."

Groaning, Madge flops herself over on the table. Birdy laughs.

"Don't worry, I had them put is all on chips for me to hand over to the docs when I got here." She scrapes up another finger full of chocolate, the bowl is almost empty. "But I had to make sure Peeta wanted me to tell them what to do first."

"Why wouldn't he?" Madge stares at her. Of course Peeta wanted to get better, didn't he?

"Like I told him, he's had a lot of people screwing with his head and I've spent too much time taking away choices, this needed to be his and no one else's."

It's fair enough, and Madge actually sees the kindness in Birdy's move.

After a moment of quiet, Madge bites her lip. "He said yes."

Birdy picks at a smear of rusty mud on her thigh and sighs. "Of course he did, I knew he would. He's good, even after everything he's been through. We need him. He's the only good person left in this mess."

When Birdy stands, her stool scraping loudly on the floor and echoing, Madge looks over at her, a question still nagging at her.

"What did you say to him? When he asked you why you wanted to help him."

She smiles, laughs softly. "I told him that we need someone good fighting this war, because when it ends, that girl can't lead her way out of a paper bag and the people pulling the strings here can't be trusted. They'll have her strung up like a marionette, pointing and dancing, completely useless."

"You told him all that?" Madge makes a face, uncertain if she's impressed or horrified at what might now be rattling around in Peeta's head.

"More or less." Birdy bobs her head. "I said, 'You're good, Peeta. These people aren't, even messed up you know that'."

It isn't much better, but Madge supposes it's an improvement.

Looking at her watch, Birdy gestures to the door. "Looks like it's time to bite the bullet."

"My shift is about to start," Madge points out.

Birdy rolls her eyes. "Does it matter?"

Madge supposes not, but she feels the need to point it out anyway.

She sighs. Time to talk to Mr. Abernathy.

#######

Somehow Birdy knows where Mr. Abernathy is, hiding away in a backroom near the hospital wing.

"Good luck," she tells Madge with a grimace before skipping off, her long coat fluttering behind her ridiculously.

Madge stares at the door separating her from Mr. Abernathy. This is going to be painful, but she needs to do it. She can't go on being useless.

Readying herself for an argument, she knocks on the door. "Mr. Abernathy? It's Madge."

After a few minutes of listening to banging around and shuffling, the door slides open and a pair of pink-tinged eyes shaded in darkened purple lids peer out at her.

"What're you doing here, sweetheart?"

Not waiting for an invite, Madge slides in beside him and looks around.

It's dark and he's alone, sitting at a large, dull metal table in the center of the room, going through papers.

She hears the door slide shut, a soft swish behind her, and turns, forcing a smile for him. "I need to talk to you."

One of his graying eyebrows rises. "I kinda guessed that."

Hands wringing together, Madge nods. Of course he'd guessed that. Stupid.

She starts to drop into one of the cold little chairs with stiff backs that sit around the table, but decides against it and leans against the table instead.

"What's wrong?" He gives her a searching look. "That girl rile you up?"

Madge supposes that technically, yes, that girl had riled her up, but not in the way he probably thinks.

"I just-I need to tell you something." She bites her lip. "I've made a decision."

He nods, crosses his arms and waits for her to carry on, but her mouth has gone dry and she isn't sure how she's even supposed to start this conversation. Shouldn't the one with her mother have been harder?

"I want to be more a part of the rebellion," she finally starts.

He nods. "Okay."

Madge twists her fingers in a knot. "Birdy, she offered to take me with her. To help with codes and-"

"No." He's already shaking his head. "If you want to help you can do it just as well here. I'll find you something to do."

Her jaw sets. He'd find her something cushy and pointless. Not like Katniss and Gale. Not because she's incapable but because he's too afraid for her.

"Mr. Abernathy, you can't stop me," she tells him firmly. "I've already talked to my mother-"

"Then I'll talk to her." He starts rubbing his face roughly with his hand. "I'll explain why this is a bad idea."

"Why is it a bad idea?" Madge pleads. "What is so bad about me wanting to be useful for a change?"

"You can be useful here," he growls. "You don't need to run off into the fire with some nut job to help anything. I can't take care of you out there. She'll get you killed."

"I can take care of myself," she grumbles, a little indignant. "And Birdy likes me. She'll watch out for me."

He laughs, a cold, dark little chuckle that makes Madge take a step back.

"Bird watch out for you?" He shakes his head. "You think she's your friend, but you don't know her. She's no one's friend. You, me, everyone she meets is just another tool for her. She's got it in her head that she's smarter than everyone else and that entitles her to play with their lives, whether they want her to or not."

A little warily, Madge remembers one of the first warnings Birdy had given her.

"-I wouldn't trust me either. I'm not to be trusted. You know why I'm here, you know my part, and you know how this story ends."

They're still playing out a tragedy, it'll still end in ruin, and they all know it. Even if they won't admit it.

"Ask her about Johanna Mason," he says, eyes focused on the dingy floor under them for a few seconds before he closes them, trying to blink out the thought. "She's a user. She's going to use you. Maybe to control me, maybe strategize against Thirteen, but she's going to use you. There's always a motive with that girl."

Madge stares at him. He's being sincere. He believes she's about to walk into the sunset of her life and he's going to tell her every hard truth he can to stop her, but even if everything he says is true, she has to go.

She isn't sure if she believes in fate or destiny, but this is where her stars are guiding her and she can't ignore the pull. Even if it kills her.

Standing her ground, Madge swallows down her doubt. "I'm going with her. Whatever her motives. I'm smart too."

His expression softens and he closes his eyes, sighs wearily. "Smart, but not manipulative. Pearl, you-there's a line, and going with that girl will force you to cross it. I don't want you to have to do that."

He looks so tired, so spent on worry and sleeplessness, that Madge can't keep herself from taking the few steps across the room and flinging her arms around him. Tears start leaking out the corners of her eyes. "I have to do this."

"You don't," he whispers. "No one will think less of you for it."

She feels his cheek against the top of her head, feels her scalp starting to get moist just under it, and tightens her hug.

"I will."

Because she's been too passive, willing to let others make the sacrifices. Mr. Abernathy, Gale, Katniss…they've done their part, and she needs to do hers.

"If this is because of that boy-I can-I'll have him put at a desk job," he tells her, his voice softer and more sincere than she's heard it in ages. After a beat, he tightens his arms around her. "Or I can have him sent somewhere. Anywhere, you name the place and he's gone."

Madge takes a long breath, inhaling the coffee scent that seems to cling to him. "Not everything is about Gale."

"He certainly doesn't help," he grumbles, smoothing her hair out.

Closing her eyes, Madge snorts softly. He isn't wrong.

"I love you," she whispers.

His arms tighten around her. "I love you too."

#######

Madge stays there, crying on his shoulder for an hour.

He doesn't try to persuade her anymore, her mind is made up and he knows it. All he can do is hope she takes his words to heart, investigates her decision more before racing off into the wild blue yonder.

She leaves, goes back to the kitchen and finds Birdy playing with a pair of wooden spoons, tapping out a rhythm on an overturned bowl. Across from her is a dark haired woman Madge only barely recognizes.

"Madge." Birdy waves her hand toward Madge with theatrical flair. "Meet Annie. Annie this is Madge."

Annie turns, smiling brightly at Madge.

"You gave Finnick the candy for me?" She asks, though it's clear she already knows the answer.

Madge nods, unable to formulate a response.

With another smile, one that makes it clear to Madge why Finnick fell in love with her, Annie stands.

"Thank you," she says, giving Madge a little nod and blinking, her eyes suddenly far away, before turning back to Birdy. "I'll let Finnick know, but I really think you ought to tell him yourself."

Birdy shakes her head. "I don't think so. Good news should come from a pleasant place."

Annie doesn't say anything to that, just stares for a moment, her eyes focused somewhere far away again before she laughs, one small burst, then turns to leave. "If you say so, Bird."

Once she's gone, letting the door slide closed behind her, Madge frowns. "She seemed…"

"Normal?" Birdy offers.

Madge nods. She'd expected a completely mad girl, someone closer to her own mother during her worst headaches than what she'd just seen. Annie seemed, at least outwardly, very well compared to Finnick and even Katniss. Certainly not the fragile broken creature Madge had prepared herself to meet eventually.

"Yeah," Birdy sighs, "she's still a little off; I mean did you hear that laugh? Finnick got her through the worst of it though. Now I guess she gets to return the favor."

"What news did you have for Finnick?" Madge asks, a warm up for the hard questions.

Birdy taps a wooden spoon on the tabletop. "His brother is alive."

"And he wouldn't want to hear it from you?"

"No one wants to get news from me, Madgie. I'm the bird through the window. I bring death," she says with a hint of disgust.

After a few minutes of quiet, only the white noise of people shuffling quietly outside the door to fill it, Birdy looks over. "Well? What happened with Mr. Haymitch?"

Madge swallows down her fear. She needs to ask.

"He told me you're using me," she starts. "He said you're going to use me to control him or to wheedle out information on Thirteen, that you always have an ulterior motive."

Birdy nods, shrugs. "Well, he isn't wrong."

"You're using me?"

"Yes and no," Birdy frowns. "Maybe, maybe not."

"What does that even mean?" Madge snaps in frustration.

She starts to tap on the bowl again. "Whatever you need it to."

Frustrated and feeling foolish, Madge stomps over and snatches the spoons from her hands. "Give me a straight answer!"

"I am! If you'd listen!" Birdy shouts back, grinning.

"No you-"

"Am I using you? Not at this moment. Will I? Absolutely. If I need to I'll exploit the connection you have to Mr. Haymitch in the blink of an eye. There's too much riding on the success of this disastrous rebellion for me not to." She grabs her spoons back and pops Madge on the head with it. "You don't trust me? Good. You're being smart. I don't trust anyone."

Rubbing her head, Madge frowns. "That's a lonely way to live isn't it?"

"Maybe, but safe." She twirls one of the spoons in her fingers. "I'm an orphan. I don't have friends, not really, and that makes me dangerous. You can't hurt someone with nothing left to lose."

"I'm not your friend?" Madge asks, uncertain what she needs the answer to be.

"Friends know each other." Birdy shrugs. "You don't know me at all, Magdalene. Someday, when all this is over, we might be, but for now…it's best not to be, understand? Connections like that are dangerous." She sighs. "Ask our little Mockingjay about that."

Madge drops into the seat adjacent to her, crosses her arms on the metal table and lets the heat from her skin cause a hazy fog on the surface.

"What happened with Johanna Mason?" Twice now she'd been used as a slam, and Madge needs to know why.

A little smile, not quite sad and nowhere near happy, bleak and resigned, forms on Birdy's lips.

"Ah, now, there's a story." She sets the spoons down.

"Well, tell it to me," Madge tells her. "If you want me to come with you as much as you say, then tell me what happened with Johanna Mason."

Rubbing her eyes, Birdy sighs before looking up at Madge and pointing toward the door. "Alright, remember when I told you about Wiress and Annie Cresta?"

They'd manipulated the Capitol audience to save the poor broken Tribute from Four, Annie Cresta, the fragile looking beauty that Finnick Odair had fallen in love with who isn't quite as fragile or broken as Madge had supposed apparently.

"We didn't think they'd want her, you know?"

"But they did," Madge points out. "They did and Finnick paid the price."

Birdy nods. "Yeah, Finnick. Better than all of us combined. That's our failing. We're detached, we have-had-to be. It's the only way we can survive."

"By hurting people who should be your friends?" Madge asks.

"Look at me, Madge," Birdy says suddenly, waving her hand over her head. "Think about Wiress and Beetee, do you think we were meant for Finnick's line of work? It's one more way to control us, don't you see? Break us apart and pit us against each other. Some are pretty, some are killers, and some, some of us are smart. Too smart for our own good."

Madge stares at her, uncertain if she wants the story to continue. A morbid sense of curiosity takes over though and she gestures for Birdy to carry on.

"You told my dad and me you pulled strings the next year, with Johanna Mason, that they caught on and took you and Wiress, tortured you and killed your prep team," Madge remembers aloud, just to make sure she's still on the same page.

Birdy nods. "Yeah, essentially."

"Essentially?" She feels a bit of foreboding building in her stomach.

"Wiress, she was the brains, but they took Wilhelm, from Five, and Charlie-Jean, from Nine, because they were part of it too." Birdy sighs. "Wil was ancient. Died after just a day. Injected him with too much Tracker Jacker venom from what I could tell. Then poor Charlie-Jean, they brought in her family, two daughters and five grandkids, made them all avoxes right in front of her." She shakes her head, stares at the table. "Charlie-Jean killed herself after that. I don't even know how."

"Wiress, well, you saw how she turned out. They used her parents, her sisters, her little nieces and nephews as target practice for some of their new Game toys. Made her watch." She stares darkly at the table. "Remember that splatter gun from the Seventy-Third? You can thank Wiress' family for the effectiveness of it."

Madge's stomach lurches. She tries not to think of the grizzly gun being used against a helpless family.

"What about you?" She finally asks, trying to blink the image of a frighten child being cut down from her mind.

"What about me?" Birdy shrugs. "I have no one. They killed my prep team and my District Escort. Who else was there? I'm alone. They can't hurt me."

For a few seconds Madge watches her, picking at a splinter of wood on the spoon in front of her. There's more to it, she just needs to think.

She thinks of Katniss and Gale, thrust together by tragedy. They might not have been friends if not for their fathers' deaths. What were the Victors if not just Katniss and Gale on a larger, much more sinister scale?

"- honestly, there aren't many people who like me." Wasn't that what Birdy had told her, what felt a lifetime ago, when Madge had asked why she was helping her?

"The other Victors," Madge says, the answer suddenly clear. "They were trying to turn you against each other, but…they all worked together-for this rebellion-so they failed. They used you against each other."

Just like they'd used Gale against Katniss.

"I already said that," Birdy points out.

"Yeah, but…" Madge bites her lip, the answer is right in front of her-she just needs to think. "That's the point isn't it? They hadn't broken you all apart and you'd managed something they didn't think possible. They needed to drive a wedge between you more."

A grin, small, but real, twitches at the edges of Birdy's lips. "You're catching on."

"Then tell me what they did." Madge's eyes widen emphatically. "Please."

Birdy's smile falls and she focuses her eyes on the spoons again.

"Wiress had planned on taking Mason into our fold, but after…everything, well, Snow told me she was going 'on the market'." Birdy makes a face. "He made me go and tell her, explain everything to her, the rules of the game, you know?"

Do as we say or your family will pay the consequences.

"And she balked?" Madge asks.

"Nope, agreed flat out."

Johanna Mason loved her family, and they loved her. She would've done anything for them.

Snow changed the rules though. While Johanna was on her Victory Tour, repaying her debts as Snow saw fit, despite the deal she'd struck, her family was killed.

"Every single one of them." Birdy sighs. "He just wanted to make a point. No matter how smart we are, he can change the rules whenever he feels like and we should behave. Having Mason pay back all her backers was inconsequential, he didn't care if she did or not, so her family didn't matter. He made a liar out of me, turned all my promises to paper and burned them right alongside that poor family, and Johanna's never forgiven me. Not that I blame her."

Snow had taken the Victors like Birdy and Wiress' only redeeming trait from them, their ability to protect their fellow Victors' families if they cooperated. He'd put them out of commission, at least for a little while.

"We were ostracized. No one would speak to us. Then the Seventy-Fourth rolls around and suddenly Mr. Haymitch needs my help." She smiles darkly. "He knew I was being sent to Twelve and he knew how good I am at what it do-did."

"But you got caught," Madge points out. She can't have been that good.

A laugh, a bit brittle, cracks along the walls and Birdy's eyes shine.

"We don't learn half as much from our success as we do from our failure." She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and lets it out slowly. "I went over every detail of what happened with Mason, I know that game, our part in it, backwards and forwards. I found every flaw in our plan, every chink in our armor."

Madge frowns. "What did you in?"

Birdy smiles. "Overconfidence. Pride'll get you if you aren't careful. We were clever and we knew it. It was our downfall. Darling President Snow knew we were a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies and he's smart. I'd be more surprised if he missed it." She taps her finger on her temple. "I'm a quick study and I knew this hot mess was only going to get hotter, I could see from a mile away what Heavensbee was thinking, but I'd lost my credibility. All I could do was spin my web and take orders."

"Now you're just spinning webs?"

"And taking orders." Birdy smirks. "It's just how I interpret them that's changed."

"Creatively?" Madge prompts, remembering the soldier from the hovercraft that had brought Twelves survivors to Thirteen's complaint.

"Is there any other way?" Birdy laughs.

Madge looks up at the light above them as it flickers. She frowns at Birdy.

"Am I going to make it out of this little adventure alive?"

Birdy's smile doesn't fade as she shrugs.

#######

They're to leave in the morning.

Mr. Abernathy and her mother stay in the compartment with her, helping her pack what few things she feels she should take. Underwear and socks, shirts and pants-all gray-and not a single pillowcase dress. Her mother stuffs a sweater, a rare commodity in the cool underground, in with the other articles.

"It's fall," she explains when Madge gives her an odd smile.

Kissing her cheek, Madge whispers, "Thank you."

They tuck candies into her pockets, more than Madge will ever be able to eat, before Mr. Abernathy arrives home.

Her mother hums and Mr. Abernathy gives Madge odd bits of advice, looking stricken and pale the entire time.

"-always keep some water with you."

"-never let Bird out of your sights. She'll save her own skin and that'll give you a clue where to run."

"-tell them you want to talk on that communicator to me and they'll let you, I promise it."

He tells her about the weather she's likely to encounter, to keep her head covered in the wind, wear boots and if it's very cold two sets of socks…

She doesn't point out that she knows all this already. He needs to feel useful and part of her needs to let him. This is her last chance to be babied and she soaks it in.

Finally, her mother's hums die and she slumps over on the couch, while Mr. Abernathy's eyes droop and his breathing slows.

It's after her mother is sleeping almost silently, curled up at beside Madge, and Mr. Abernathy is snoring, his head is lolled back and his legs sprawled out in front of him, Madge hears a soft knock on the door.

Squinting into the dark, she sees it's well after midnight, and she huffs.

Only one person would be bothering her after midnight, her last comfortable night for what may be a very long time.

Carefully, trying not to disturb her mother or Mr. Abernathy, Madge gets up and quietly pads across the room and to the door.

It slides open and she's already glaring, prepared to hiss at the late visitor. "Birdy!"

Instead of a short woman in odd clothing, Madge comes face to face with someone tall, dressed all in gray.

"So you are leaving," Gale says before Madge has even fully registered his presence. He scowls. "Aren't you?"

His voice carries and Madge glances over her shoulder to make sure he hasn't woken either her mother or Mr. Abernathy. When she sees them snoring on, she steps out the door, letting it slide silently closed behind her.

Lifting her eyes, she settles Gale in a level gaze. "I am."

"Why?" His voice is harsh, a little demanding. "Where are you going?"

"Away," Madge tells him, unable to keep the chill from her voice. He isn't entitled to know her every move. She's old enough to make her own decisions, pick up and leave any time she feels like it, and she is.

He runs both his hands over his face, through his hair, standing it on end, before finally letting them settle on his neck.

"My brothers told me," he says, as though she's asked him.

Madge nods. She'd said her goodbyes to the Hawthornes as she'd gone home from the kitchen, completely ignoring the schedule on her arm.

Vick had cried, sobbed on her dress.

"You don't have to go," he told her. "Please don't go."

Rory, unexpectedly, had been more understanding. With a smile, he opened his arms, and Madge, for once, let him have a hug.

"Be careful out there," he'd whispered in her ear before letting go.

Hazelle had tearfully kissed Madge's cheek and promised to tell Posy, who'd already gone to bed, that Madge would miss her and she'll see her again someday.

"And we will, won't we?" She asked, eying Madge sadly. "This is just a temporary thing isn't it?"

Madge had only smiled. She didn't know and she didn't want to lie to them.

Gale lets out a long breath. It ruffles Madge's hair and she can smell the last of his dinner on it, hot and flavorless. "Where are you going?"

"West," Madge answers simply.

His eyes seem to glow with irritation over her glibness. "Where?"

Madge groans. She won't be a problem for him anymore. Nothing more than a black smudge from the fires on his memory that he can scrub off.

"What does it matter, Gale? I'll be gone. Far, far away. I'm helping you, simplifying things. Peeta's a mess and I'll be anywhere but here. It's just you and Katniss, just like you've wanted since the beginning."

"That isn't what I wanted," he says softly, his stormy eyes focused on the sconce light to the right of the door.

"Are you sure? Because you kiss me and confuse me then run off to be with Katniss in Two. I can't imagine how I got the idea you wanted to be alone with Katniss in my head."

Tears start to build up in her eyes and she swats them away. She won't cry for him, over him, not again.

"I…" His eyes finally settle on her, but he's at a loss for words.

For a few minutes he just stares at her, eyes traveling from the top of her head down to her feet and back up, then he sighs.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so, so sorry."

Madge studies him for a minute, the crease forming between his eyes from squinting, the stubble along his jaw, the curve of his mouth. He's sorry, and she believes him.

Gale, for all his faults, isn't purposefully cruel. A bit thoughtless at times, quick to anger, but every inch of his face is contrite. He's sorry.

"Gale," Madge finally says, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. "I know."

It's her curse, she'll find a way to understand him, forgive him for hurting her, no matter what.

It happens before she even realizes it. Gale's pulled her hand, jerked her forward, caused her to fall into him, wrapping his arms around her.

She's too startled to move, just stays pinned to his chest for several seconds while he buries his face in her hair, breathes her in. Gently, his fingers start to weave into her hair, toying with the ends.

It would almost be enough for her, she thinks, to stay locked in Gale's embrace for the rest of what promises to be a short life. Almost.

Her battles might be less exciting than Gale's, less fire fueled and glamorous, but that doesn't mean they won't be important. She needs to be useful, not for anyone's sake, but for her own.

Gale has his fights and she has hers. She can't change her mind now, just for a hug.

"I have to go," she manages to whisper, though her voice is strangely distant. Hollow, as if she doesn't want to believe it herself.

His cheek comes to rest against her head and she feels him nod. "I know."

As Madge starts to back away, tell him she needs to get a little sleep before Birdy comes to take her away, her breath catches.

Gale is staring at her. His eyes are dark, glowing, and the air seems oddly still and filled with a sort of violent electricity.

Then he leans in, puts a feather light kiss to her lips before pressing a little closer.

Where their last kiss had been needy and bruising, almost angry, maybe at Madge or maybe at himself, she isn't sure, this one is the opposite. It's brittle in its hesitancy, soft, tastes of the salt of his sweat from his training. She isn't sure which she prefers.

It takes less than an intake of breath, the smallest gasp, for Gale's hands to tighten at her waist, press her closer to him as he deepens the kiss. One of Madge's hands, with a mind of its own, fists in his shirt, refusing to let him back away, while the other tangles in his dark hair.

"I can't leave this," Gale says, his lips having moved to her cheek, brushing against it roughly with each word.

As much as she wishes he meant this, Madge and whatever strange electricity they've got building between them, love or lust or something completely their own, she knows he doesn't.

He can't leave Katniss and the war being waged.

Madge pulls back, takes a step away. It's unfair how he uses her, she finally realizes.

Before she can open her door and escape, because this isn't how she wants to spend her last hours in Thirteen, he grabs her.

With Madge's face between his hands, he makes her look at him.

"Madge." He rubs his thumbs over her cheeks, just under her eyes. "I can't leave Katniss, but…that…that doesn't mean what you think."

Keeping her eyes off his, Madge nods. Katniss is the one that needs him at the moment, she's his friend, no matter the circumstances, and he won't abandon her, and Madge wouldn't want him to.

Things are unsettled between her and Gale, and they're going to stay that way it seems.

Teardrops she hadn't even realized had sprung to life, roll down Madge's cheeks, cling to her eyelashes and blur her vision.

Gale's calloused thumbs brush them away.

"I thought Katniss was my future, for so long Madge and…I don't know. You can't just drop feelings like that."

She wants to tell him that he should be able to tell which feelings are stronger, which feelings are love and which are love, but she keeps that thought inside. He's admitting that what's between them isn't just something he can ignore, and that gives her a little hope.

"I have to go," she says, her voice thick and her eyes shining in the dim light. She doesn't want to, but she has to.

Because despite what's going on with Katniss and Peeta, this isn't the time for making these kind of decisions. Emotions are too high and too many people have the potential to get hurt. Madge can't do that, she loves them all too much to cause them pain.

When this is over, when they aren't at the edge of death, maybe they can be something, but not now.

"When this is over, I'll find you," he tells her, promises her. "We can try."

Madge doubts she'll live to see the end, this is her march into the oblivion. Gale will be free from her, guiltless and unburdened. She gives him a smile, a nod anyway. "Okay."

He thinks this is might be the first chapter of their relationship, but Madge is certain it's nothing but a tragic little footnote in his life.

Madge Undersee, his 'what might've been, but never will be'

She wants him to be happy though, his last image of her to be a bright one, so she smiles a little wider, leans in and presses one last soft kiss to his lips. She deserves a happy memory before the end, doesn't she?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 are wonderful and I can't thank them enough for helping me.

They leave on a hovercraft, switch off to a train somewhere in the south before finally arriving in Ten.

It's cold and dry. Lonely winds cut through Madge's pitiful dress and all her attempts to bundle herself up. Birdy ends up digging a musty smelling blanket out from a wooden crate during the ride to Ten's Seat, the largest city in the District.

Once the train grinds to a stop, loudly, not like the graceful and silent trains from the Capitol, they hop off and Madge squints up at the setting sun. It's pale, almost white in the sky. Quickly they run to a noisy, rusty truck that smells of dirt and fumes.

The man driving is familiar, Madge recognizes him from the bombing of Twelve, and when she scoots into the middle seat of the crumbling truck, he introduces himself.

"Jefferson," he says as he offers his hand.

Taking it, Madge smiles. "Madge."

For the entire ride, which takes less than ten minutes, he updates Birdy on what's happened in her absence, which isn't much.

"Well, it'll catch up soon enough," is all Birdy says.

They stop in front of an old brick building, the base for District Ten. The architecture is something out of the nation that existed before Panem, high arches and giant windows. It's out of place in the earthy, crumbling city that surrounds it.

"This is our stop," Birdy says, giving Madge a tug out of the truck and telling Jefferson thank you.

"It's beautiful," Madge whispers. It has to be a library, or maybe a museum. It's too wonderful not to be. "What is it?"

Birdy looks up at the building for a few seconds, her steps not stopping, then back at Madge with a small smile. "Brothel."

Madge stops in her tracks and drops her reverent gaze down to Birdy. "A brothel." She feels her stomach drop. "I can't stay at a brothel."

Birdy shrugs. "Well, don't take your shoes off and you should be fine."

Closing her eyes, Madge sighs. To say she's horrified would be grossly understating the situation.

She'd thought coming to the hub that all the food bound for the Capitol went through, would land her in somewhere, well, a bit nicer. Not somewhere that she's scared to take her shoes off in.

Madge dutifully follows her through the heavy wooden doors, her expectations sufficiently lowered. She gasps at what she sees.

It isn't filthy, no like she'd expected. There are heavy ruby curtains over the high windows, a chandelier that despite having no electricity to keep it alight is still breathtaking, and an enormous fountain against the far wall made of tiny colorful tiles that glitter in the dying light of evening.

The staircases rise up on both sides, to the rooms on the next floor, then another set rise from there to the next level.

Women and men are bustling around, scurrying up and down the stairs. Some are dressed like Madge and her group, dirty and tired looking, but others look ready for a dinner party.

One of the women, tall with golden hair and a velvety blue dress, comes up to them.

"What's the gospel, Rebecca?" Birdy asks.

The woman, Rebecca, gives her a brilliant smile. "We weren't expecting you quite so soon."

"Life's full of surprises," Birdy tells her. "Where's Sorghum?"

Rebecca points one of her well manicured fingers toward a door at the back of the building. "She's a bit busy at the moment. Would you like me to take your friend up to the room?"

Birdy shakes her head without looking at Rebecca. "No, she's coming with me."

Without waiting for a response, Birdy grabs Madge by the arm and drags her through the lobby, to the room she'd been pointed to and through the door.

People are running around, craning over tables and chattering loudly to one another, paying no attention to the pair of newcomers. Birdy takes Madge and weaves through the crowd, to the back of the room, to where a woman with dark skin and glittering golden eyes is making adjustments to playing pieces on a table. Once she's taken her finger from the top of a queen, she looks up and smiles.

"Birdy, always a pleasure."

Birdy shrugs as though she doesn't believe that. "If you say so." She flops into one of the high backed chairs with bits of upholstery missing and waves her hand at the table and pieces. "What's going on?"

The woman smiles, tilts her head and takes not of Madge. She expects to be thrown out, but instead the woman holds out her hand. "I'm Commissioner Sorghum Mills."

She's tall, maybe taller than Gale, and he's the tallest person Madge has ever met, and Madge feels tiny in comparison as her sweaty hand takes the Commissioner's. "Madge Undersee."

"Ah, Birdy had mentioned you might come." She smiles, her golden eyes glittering again as she takes Madge in. "We aren't quite as high tech as what you've left behind, but I think you'll eventually see the benefits of our methods."

#######

Birdy's friend, Katy-Jo Lewes, takes them upstairs after a few hours of Madge wandering around the lower level of the building.

They go up several stories, Madge forgets to count, until they're on one of the topmost floors.

It's as nice as the other floors, long halls with polished floors and luxurious rugs running the length of them. The sconces on the walls each have candles in place of electric bulbs, casting everything in eerie yellow light.

Katy-Jo takes out an ancient looking key and opens the last door on the right.

The room is dark until Birdy and Katy-Jo carry their little candles in and light all the candles placed throughout the room.

Madge inspects the beds, a pair of iron frames painted white, with delicately sewn quilts and several fluffy pillows on top. There's a small fridge and a telephone on the bedside table, so Madge thinks that the entire building must be outfitted for electricity, there simply isn't any.

"Oh, coffee," Madge hears Birdy say as she begins fussing with something in the corner of the room. "This is good. Better than the crap Thirteen has. You've been holding out. Where'd you get this?"

Turning, Madge sees Katy-Jo shrug. "I forgot about it. Got it from a customer a few months back. Some kind of spice trader. He was a bore."

Madge frowns as she process what they're saying, but then collapses onto the bed. She's too tired to think.

She settles onto the bed, inhaling the scent of lavender from the pillow as she falls asleep to the sound of Birdy and Katy-Jo discussing coffee.

#######

It takes a couple of weeks, but Madge begins to understand the flow of things. Food arrives from Eleven and Nine and leaves with fresh meat on one day, arrives again with weapons only to leave with more meat another. In and out on the old cattle cars, across the districts to keep the Rebellion from failing from lack of food and supplies.

"It's Katy-Jo Lewes," Katy-Jo Lewes tells Madge for what feels like the thousandth time since Madge's arrival. "I'm gonna remind you until it sticks."

She isn't mad, Katy-Jo Lewes is rarely mad. Unlike Birdy who thinks it's her job to belittle and poke fun of everyone, Katy-Jo Lewes gently nudges and praises. For every reminder she gives there are at least a dozen 'good jobs'.

Katy-Jo Lewes, Madge decides, is her friends, maybe her first real one ever.

They talk, sometimes about stupid stuff, sometimes about things Madge absently brings up, between going through files to help determine routes for food to be transported across the districts as well as weapons.

"Where do the weapons come from? The bullets?" She asks, quickly adding, "Katy-Jo Lewes."

"Well, people smarter than any of us figured out how to convert the canneries in Four into munitions plants and Six has started helping make us our own hovercrafts and all those lovely guns we been using up," Katy-Jo Lewes explains.

Madge presses her lips into a line. "When?"

Katy-Jo Lewes shrugs. "I dunno. Before either one of us was born, from what I can tell."

"This party has been in the planning for decades," Birdy tells them, dropping into an empty seat beside Madge. She begins ticking off points on her fingers. "Mags Cohen, Beetee Latier, Wilhelm Maize, Wiress, just to name a few, they all had a hand in this. Every detail we have they helped to gather."

The fact that so much of the Rebellion has already been plotted out, details worked and reworked for the past seventy plus years, is both a source of comfort and worry. Maybe they hadn't been as thorough as they thought, or maybe they'd needed more time.

Only time would tell she supposed.

"And your little boyfriend too, huh?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, wagging her eyebrows up and down.

"He's not my boyfriend," Birdy mutters. "He's an acquaintance."

"A handsome acquaintance," Katy-Jo Lewes adds, nudging Madge with her shoulder and winking. "Not unlike your tall, dark, and grumpy boy back in Thirteen."

Madge groans. She wishes she'd never mentioned Gale to Katy-Jo Lewes.

It had been during the night, when Madge had woken from one of her nightmares, which seemed to be getting worse again in her unfamiliar surroundings.

"Tell me about something pleasant," Katy-Jo Lewes had said.

After several minutes of thinking, Madge had sighed. "I can't think of anything. That's terrible isn't it?"

"It just means you need a little prodding. Life isn't all bad, can't be. People wouldn't still be around if it were."

That made as much sense as anything else, so Madge had let Katy-Jo Lewes ask her question after question, searching for happy thoughts.

"So the girl on fire sold you strawberries?" She grinned, her eyes glowing in the candle light. "And her cousin too?"

"He isn't her cousin," Madge had quickly told her. A little too quickly.

Grin widening, as if she'd caught on to something very interesting, Katy-Jo Lewes nodded. "Oh, that's right. He's…whatever he is I guess. Birdy's work I'm guessing?"

Madge nodded.

"Piss him off?"

Snorting, Madge nods again. "He was furious."

"That must've made her happy. Nothing makes her day like ruining someone else's."

Something about Madge's eyes, the way she'd said his name, had given her away, and Katy-Jo Lewes hadn't let it go.

"That boy is trouble," Birdy had told her when she'd come back to the room, apparently having gone down for a transmission in the dead of the night. "Dorothy is a steaming pile of discord and he's going to lead us all to ruin."

"You are such a ray of sunshine." Katy-Jo Lewes rolled her eyes.

"I try." Birdy shrugged.

Even though Madge regrets letting Katy-Jo Lewes in on her crush, hopeless as it will ultimately be, it's strangely nice to be able to talk about it. She's never had someone so interested in her life, boring as it's been, and she isn't all that eager to get rid of the warm feeling anytime soon, even if she tries to act annoyed.

"You two need to meet Jefferson at the range in fifteen minutes. You need to at least have the basics of firing a gun down before whatever comes comes," Birdy says, ignoring Katy-Jo Lewes jabs at her love life. Her eyebrows arch up and she shakes her head. "And stop reading romance novels. Nothing but drivel."

"Says the girl who read 'Pride and Prejudice' seven times in three years," Katy-Jo Lewes calls out at Birdy's shrinking figure.

She either doesn't hear or doesn't care, because she doesn't turn, not even to toss a rude gesture at them.

After gathering up their papers, notes scribbled on scraps and bits of wood and glass, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes head to the range.

It's nothing more than a fenced off patch of land, not a stitch of grass left since the horses had finished with it, and cold. Madge isn't fond of it, but since Birdy had assured her that without even a working knowledge of how to defend herself Madge wouldn't be allowed to go with her if and when the final push on the Capitol came, she didn't have a choice.

"I can box," Madge had pointed out. "Isn't that good enough?"

"While I'm sure your upper cut is a thing of beauty," Birdy had told Madge while leading her to the firing range, "it would be best to not get in swinging range. Distance is our friend."

So Madge had spent at least an hour a day with wiry haired Jefferson learning how to fire a gun.

It was her least favorite time of the day.

Katy-Jo Lewes attended only to flirt, or at least that's what Madge thought. She'd yet to see her so much as touch a gun.

"You take Birdy too seriously," she'd told Madge when she asked why she didn't practice. "She won't leave us behind."

Madge doesn't tell her about Birdy's claim about not having friends, about trusting no one, because she seemed to be under the impression that she falls into both categories. Increasingly Madge thinks maybe Katy-Jo Lewes is right. She knew her before her Games, she might have a bit of insight into her mind.

Jefferson smiles as Madge takes the long gun from him and immediately checks to see if it's loaded.

"Good girl, very good."

For another hour Madge stands in the cold wind, eyes stinging and nose running, trying vainly to get closer and closer to the center of her target. It's better than when she started. The kickback from the gun had nearly startled her into falling over then. Now she at the very least clips the corner of the makeshift bulls eye, a crudely painted circle on a bed sheet affixed to a stack of rectangular hay bales.

"You get better everytime," Jefferson tells her, his crooked teeth flashing, yellowed from years of chewing some foul looking substance the wranglers all seemed very fond of.

Someone snorts behind her, and when Madge turns she finds Birdy and her friends, a pair of boys named Jessup and Jobe, laughing about something. She scowls at them.

"Well, I'm better than I was," she huffs at them.

Jefferson smiles comfortingly at her. "Don't mind them any. Jobe still can't hit the broadside of a barn at twenty paces."

"Can too!" Jobe, a burly man with a heavy beard and thick rough looking, rust colored hair snaps, his face flushing a deep red. "I'm better than Katy-Jo Lewes."

"That's not saying much," Jefferson tells him with a chuckle.

Jessup throws his arm over Madge's shoulder and takes the gun from her hands, handing it to Jefferson before steering her away from the range. "Dinner time little sister."

Jobe and Jessup are like Katy-Jo Lewes, artifacts of the Birdy that had existed before her Games, people she seems to like despite herself. They're loud and filthy, rough around the edges, but kind. They don't seem to care that Madge had been the daughter of a Mayor.

"One of our best friends was the son of a councilman," Jessup had told her with a shrug. "Everyone's equal in the eyes of the Capitol"

Everyone's lot in life was made of misery, why add to it unnecessarily? That was the creed of Ten. It was mysterious, but hopeful to her. She wasn't an outsider, not for being privileged and not for being from the outside of their district. It was a foreign feeling of acceptance, and Madge still isn't completely comfortable with it.

The group ends up in a barn that's been set up as a commissary. There are benches, set end to end, lined up along the center, filled with noisily eating people.

It isn't like Thirteen, where there are set times, everyone comes when they have time and that keeps it evenly busy almost twenty-four hours a day. Madge has come in at all hours and found it filled with happily chatting people in dusty, dirty clothes. Something about that comforts her, makes it all less clinical.

The food is more varied, even if she can't say she likes it much more than the flavorless mush she'd subsided on during her stay in Thirteen.

Frog legs and fried snake, smoked animals of all sorts are the mainstay, served with snapped beans and strange, lumpy orange potatoes are certainly more available. She never goes to bed hungry in Ten.

"We raided the Peacekeepers villages," Jessup had explained to her when she'd asked where the abundance of food had come from, his dark eyes, bright but almost black, widening.

"Guess this is the last dinner we get with y'all for a while," Jobe tells them as he drops his tray, a round pie pan, onto the table. "Jessup and I are heading out north here in an hour."

Birdy frowns at him and Katy-Jo Lewes makes a face.

"Why?" She asks, a lump of potato falling from her fork. Birdy spears it from her pie pan and eats it while she awaits his answer.

"Dunno," he shrugs. "They just came to us and said 'You boys're moving out tonight, you'll be gone a bit so pack a couple longhandles', so we're leaving."

They're grunts, at least that's what they call themselves. Strong and sure, used to working hard in unfavorable conditions so they get called off at strange times, normally not for a day or two. Packing more than one pair of thermal underclothes is a bit ominous. It's an unusual trip, and they all know it.

Once they clean their plates, literally lick every crumb from the pie pans, Jobe and Jessup give the girls hugs.

"See y'all when we get back," Jessup tells them, giving Birdy a long, searching look before exchanging a glance with Katy-Jo Lewes.

They head out, across the dusty dark open area between the base and the crumbling buildings around it, until they're swallowed up by the darkness with one last glance back and a wave goodbye.

#######

"Get up," Madge hears Birdy say.

She glances at the tiny alarm clock, a relic from decades past, ticking endlessly on the nightstand. Three am.

Groaning, Madge pulls the old quilt over her head. "You just had a nightmare, Birdy. Go back to sleep."

It's happened before. Birdy will wake in a cold sweat on the ground, flailing around, terrified that she's back in her own arena, surrounded by glowing bugs and carnivorous plants, or listening to the families of Victor's burning up in their own houses, and she'll wake Madge. Not to talk and not to complain, but just to have the comfort of another person sitting with her.

Katy-Jo Lewes is too hard a sleeper, so Madge is her go to person.

"I used to go find Miss Mary or Miss Coraline, sometimes Brandsetter," she'd told Madge, the first night she'd woken her.

But Mary Jacson, Coraline Lons, and Tommy Brandsetter are all dead. She hadn't been able to rescue them from the Capitol's clutches before they were executed on live television.

Normally Madge is more receptive. She knows how bad the thoughts in a person's head can be, how helpless nightmares can make everything seem, but the cold nights of Ten's inching winter are making her sluggish. Sleep is a welcome warmth after a day of bone aching cold and she's hard pressed to abandon it at the moment.

Her bed shifts and suddenly her sheets are yanked. Madge feels herself being flung.

Gracelessly, she ends up in a heap on the ice cold floor.

"What is your problem?" She yells, not caring if she wakes the neighboring rooms.

"I told you to get up," Birdy tells her before turning to Katy-Jo Lewes' bed and grabbing the cup of water on the bedside table. "You too, Katherine Jo."

She dumps the water, which is undoubtedly frigid at the moment, onto Katy-Jo Lewes head.

Screaming, Katy-Jo Lewes sits bolt up in bed, fists swinging. After a few seconds of fruitless fighting with the air, she opens her eyes and snarls. "What in the hell was that for?"

"We're leaving," Birdy tells her, squatting down and snatching up a bag and tossing it at Katy-Jo Lewes' head. "Now."

They aren't given time to argue, Birdy throws clothing at them, shoes and thick socks, then rushes them around, refusing to tell them anything.

"I'll explain later," is all she says.

Fifteen furious minutes later, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes unhappily run after Birdy as she takes them down the back stairwell of the base, their feet echoing ominously with each step.

Birdy, despite being shorter than both of them, having tinier strides, beats them to the bottom. She taps her foot impatiently as she waits for them to reach the bottom step.

"You'd think you'd both be a bit faster," she mutters, waving for them to follow her.

"I'm not taking another step 'til you tell me where we're going," Katy-Jo Lewes finally snaps, pulling a thick woolen hat over her still wet hair. "What's gotten into you?"

Birdy stops dead in her tracks, turns and crosses her arms over her chest. "We're going to Four."

Madge frowns, blinks, then rubs her face with her freezing hands. "What? Have you been drinking?"

She's had enough with drunk Victors for a lifetime.

"Do I look drunk?" Birdy asks.

Madge thinks about telling her that yes, she does look a bit drunk. Her hair is wind-blown, stringy and greasy looking, her skin an odd gray under the half shrouded moon, and her eyes shining wildly, but she decides not to prod her. Clearly she's unwell.

Waving her hand, Birdy beacons them, and with sighs of irritation, both girls do.

Finally, once the train station is in view, Birdy stops again, looks to the sky, then sighs.

"We're going to Four to prepare for the push on the Capitol."

That pushes whatever fog of sleep is left in Madge's head out. "What?"

"We go to Four, wait a few days, then we're part of the first wave into the Capitol. We're reconnaissance."

With another glance to the sky, she gestures for them to follow her.

They pass into the train yard, which is unnaturally busy. People are rushing around, wide eyed and worried, packing the cattle cars with boxes of supplies.

"Why are they packing so much?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks.

"We're leaving," Birdy says, without further explanation.

Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes scurry after her, past stacks and piles of supplies, until they reach a cattle car being filled with people.

Birdy mutters, more to herself than to anyone else and turns to the pair. She jerks her head, toward a storage building.

They go to the building, more a large shack, and Madge stops, crossing her arms and glaring.

"How can we be going in for recon?" Madge asks, her back to the trains behind her. "And why is everyone being evacuated?"

Because it's clear that's what's happening. Food, supplies, and people, everyone and everything is being cleared out of the Seat.

"We're just evacuating this half of the city," Birdy explains. "We have the other secured."

She pushes the door open, it groans, then waves for Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes to go in.

It's dark except for the sliver of moonlight glowing in through the filthy window. Birdy points to a pair of dusty sticky boxes against the wall. "Sit down, shut up, and listen, 'cause I'm not explaining this twice."

Once they're sitting, glaring at her through the dim, dust filled air, Birdy flops against the wall.

"This half of the city is going to be destroyed in a couple of hours," she says evenly, as though she's giving them the weather report.

"What?" Madge sputters, horrified.

"Shhh!" Katy-Jo Lewes presses a finger to her lips to silence her.

With a withered look, Birdy continues.

"It's part of the plan. We need to draw out some of the Capitol's forces. It's the only way we have a fighting chance. They just have too much power. We can't go in, guns blazing, when they still have so much support surrounding them. Especially in such a well secured little nest."

Slowly, almost mechanically, she begins to explain.

They'd been waiting, determining the best time to attack. Watching weather patterns and troop movements, waiting for the time to strike.

The dam that had been destroyed in Five hadn't been the Capitol's doing, it had been the Rebels'.

"It was their main power source," she explains. "They would've never destroyed it because they wanted to secure it. Getting rid of it was a priority."

"But why let Thirteen think it was the Capitol?" Madge asks.

"Psychological warfare."

"Against your own side?"

"Those of us that think Thirteen is as much trouble as the Capitol wanted them to think the Capitol is crazy, desperate. We also didn't want them to know how smart we are."

The Rebels outside of Thirteen, mostly from Five and Three, had come up with a plan to drain the Capitol's power. Take away their main source, then allow them sporadic use of the smaller power stations.

"Five had control of the smaller power stations, so that when Thirteen wanted to show a propo the Capitol couldn't cut the electricity and keep its citizens from seeing. Our people could override them and keep it on."

"I didn't think you liked the propos," Madge says without thinking.

"I never said that." Birdy grins. "I know how powerful those things can be. That's my bread and butter, messing with peoples' heads. I just don't like the people pulling the strings, I never have."

Thirteen thought it was good fortune, not strategy that was keeping the Capitol from pulling their plug on the most recent stretch of propos.

When propos weren't being funneled into the Capitol, it was being forced to use generators.

"Our little brain trust knows everything about those generators."

How much power they could create and just how long they would last. At the rate they'd been used, at the beginning of the war, when the Capitol had expected a swift and decisive victory the backup electricity is dwindling.

"They're only going to be able support major facilities and absolute needs pretty soon."

With major resources knocked out, that will be the best time to send in the first wave, when the Capitol's electric is at a minimal, putting them at the disadvantage.

"We've been making due without electric for decades, we can work that way, they can't."

"So…" Madge frowns, "we're drawing some of their forces out to weaken them more?"

"Exactly."

"And just how do you know they're coming for us?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, her eyebrows high on her forehead.

Birdy smiles serenely. "We have people on the inside, people setting traps, ways of setting out false information. They're sending a considerable force down here because they think we've been hiding something down here and they really want to wipe it out."

Madge thinks she might not want to know just what lies Birdy and her people had fed the Capitol. Something about her untroubled demeanor tell her it won't be something Madge will like.

"What exactly do they think we're hiding?" Katy-Jo Lewes finally asks, though she looks no more excited about what she's about to hear than Madge feels.

"Katniss Everdeen."

Madge frowns. "Why would they-"

Her question dies in her mouth.

There's always an ulterior motive.

"Damn you, Birdy," Madge groans, covering her face. "Is that why you brought me here? To trick them?"

"It isn't not why I brought you here," she answers with a shrug. "It was one of many reasons. I really did think you'd be useful here, and you have been."

Madge thinks there are plenty of people who could've found paths for food and supply transport. She'd been a place holder for Katniss. Again.

"So they think you brought our Mockinjay to Ten and we've been messing around with her for a few weeks?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks after a few moments of silence.

"They think she's been training. Which is probably true. Just not here." Birdy glances out the window. "I don't know though. For all I know she's curled up in a ball in the hospital ward. I also don't really care."

Katniss, at least as far as Birdy is concerned, has met her purpose. Whether she's alive or dead at the moment doesn't matter to her. It wouldn't be a pointless death. She might be refashioned as a martyr for all they know.

"So we've set them up to think she's here, watched the weather patterns and started moving our resources to the other side of the city, and had our people on the inside feed them some incorrect information. They're planning an assault on the city in the next few hours."

"But all the people in the city-"

"-are being evacuated," Birdy cuts Katy-Jo Lewes off. "Only those fully informed and prepared to die, to see this to the end, are staying."

She pushes herself from the wall and crosses to the door, pushing it open and filling the room with the noise of people and trains.

"Now come on."

#######

Madge curls up around herself as the clatter of the train drowns out any noise the other occupants of the car make.

Katy-Jo Lewes is asleep again. She can sleep through anything it seems, even life changing moves.

"Hate me yet?" Birdy asks, dropping down cross legged in front of Madge.

There's barely any light in the car, just the small bit of what may be rising sun, glowing through the cracks in the door, or maybe it's District Ten burning, she isn't sure what direction they're going, but what there is catches in Birdy's eyes, making them shine.

A part of her does. Madge feels used, and even if it isn't a new sensation, she still hates it if only for the aching familiarity it brings. She's been an ersatz Katniss for a whole new group of people now. The thought brings bile up in her throat.

"It just worked out. I would've brought you down here no matter if it had helped with the plan or not, just so you know. You needed out of there."

Madge nods. "Thanks."

Silence stretches between them and Madge watches as Birdy leans back on her palms and stares up at the roof.

"This is how they took us to the Reaping," she says suddenly. "The last time I was in a cattle car Katy-Jo Lewes and I beat some of the older boys playing cards. A few hours later and I was being packed off to the Capitol." She smiles to herself. "I hate trains."

It's a bleak thought, children being packed up like the cattle and shipped to the stockyards for the Reaping. There's an inhumanity about it that shakes Madge. No wonder her father had wanted to leave it behind.

To get her mind off the image of Birdy during her Reaping, a tiny girl in a faded green dress with wide eyes and a terrified expression, Madge thinks of the city she's just left.

"How is sacrificing fighters to a war any different than sacrificing spies, who have given as much consent for their lives to be lost as any soldier?" Madge asks, remembering Birdy's anger at the handling of the mission to save Peeta.

"It was sloppy," Birdy answers simply. "I know sacrifices have to be made, Madge, I'm not an idiot. Like Heavensbee said, I understand that. But there's been enough bloodshed. We could've started this new country without the show, without a figurehead, without losing our own morals." She sighs. "I don't want to become them anymore than I already have."

The train clatters on and Madge nods.

Neither does she.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for all the help. 
> 
> Also, warning, there's mentions of rape and suicide in this chapter. Sorry.

District Four isn't as hot as Madge thought it would be.

Madge expected it to be unbearable, sultry and sticky, just like the Capitol programs depict it as. That, she quickly, realizes was just another Capitol illusion.

"The ocean moderates the temperature," Anton Del Mar explained to her when she voiced her confusion about the temperature. "We have fairly nice weather year round, just not always as hot as the Capitol paints it."

"They have boring weather year round," Birdy countered tartly. "If they didn't have calendars then they wouldn't know what season it should be."

Anton had laughed at her attitude.

"She's just jealous," he assured Madge. "Her District has all the shitty weather."

Madge had laughed at the affronted looks on both Birdy and Katy-Jo Lewes' faces at the insult, not because she agreed with it, but because it was hard not to at the very least smile when Anton was around.

He was witty and warm despite the fact that Birdy had confirmed that he, and most of District Four's Victors over the years with the exception of Annie Cresta, had been bought and sold, passed around the Capitol since his victory.

"He's not like Finnick though," Madgepointed out.

Birdy just shrugged. "No, but everyone deals differently don't they? Everyone copes differently."

After that Madge had watched a little closer, not just Anton, but Birdy too.

They're very deliberate in their approach to things, different, but with a common thread. There's a safeguard in them that Madge isn't sure they even realize is there.

That, she supposes, is why they gravitate toward one another. Like Katy-Jo Lewes, she thinks they might like one another more than they let on, but she brushes that thought aside as projecting her own hopeless romance onto someone else.

Both are broken, just like Finnick and Annie, like Katniss, Peeta, and even Mr. Abernathy, but they've glued themselves together differently. Madge has seen the cracks in the other Victors' veneer, maybe simply because she's been around them more. Time, she supposes, will tell if she ever finds the seams holding Birdy and Anton together.

"Calamari?" He offers Madge a bit of strange meat, something fried and unappetizing.

Wrinkling her nose, she shakes her head. "What's Calamari?"

It sounds familiar, though she isn't sure why. She's certain District Twelve didn't have whatever it is.

"Fried squid," he tells her with a smile, dazzling white teeth flashing before he pops it in his mouth and lets his face shift into an uplifted expression. "It's divine, you really should try it."

Continuing to pull a face, Madge goes back to her assignment, tracing troop lines on a map of District Seven and trying to help determine where the next food drop should come from.

After a few minutes, she looks up and glances over, spotting a little white container and frowning.

It finally hits her where she's seen calamari before.

"You sent the chairs to Twelve when the Seventy-Fourth Games were ending!"

He takes a bow. "That I did. Well, me and a few others."

Popping another fried bit of squid into his mouth, he holds it out to her again, giving the container a shake and causing the food to rattle dryly.

"Why?"

"Did you want to stand the whole time?"

She shakes her head. It still didn't make sense, not really, but he's as vague as Birdy. There'll be no answers from him.

"You sent Birdy calamari then, too," she adds, remembering being offered the unappealing snack then as well.

"She likes it," he shrugs.

A little smile twitches up on Madge's lips. "You like her, don't you?"

He doesn't answer, just grins and pops another piece of fried squid in his mouth.

His smile is infectious and Madge grins back. "She liked it."

"I know."

Giving him a scrutinizing look, Madge crosses her arms over her chest. "Does she like you?"

That causes the grin to slip from his face. "That is a complicated question."

Madge feels the easy mood shift. She hates complicated questions and complicated emotions. She's got too many of those issues in her own life. At the least she'd like her sort-of-friend to have an easier love life than her own.

"Is it because of…" She isn't sure how to ask if it's because of what the Capitol did to him, that doesn't seem like something Birdy would hold against him, but she isn't sure about much of anything anymore.

He snorts. "No." His mouth twitches back up. "She's got, if you can imagine, some pretty spectacular trust issues."

Madge battles down a laugh. "You don't say."

Turning, he settles against the table and takes another bite of his snack.

"It's the joy of Victory," he tells her, chewing thoughtfully.

Nodding, Madge sighs. "I don't know what I'd do." She glances over at him. "If I were a Victor, I mean."

She isn't sure she'd survive half as well as him or Finnick, but she doubts she could hurt families like Birdy had. There'd be no place for her.

"You'd do what you'd need to do," he answers. "You're certainly pretty enough for them to have wanted you, but you're also pretty sharp, so Birdy and Beetee'd probably try to snatch you up."

That isn't a comfort, but she nods somberly anyway. "I don't think I could do either, though."

"You've got to understand our perspectives," he tells her softly. "I did what I did to keep my family safe. I only hurt myself. Birdy and the others, though, they stayed alive by breaking other people and convincing themselves they were helping them by giving them options and building the lies they needed to survive the Capitol. Created a little cognitive dissonance. As messed up as the Capitol made me, Finnick, and the others, I'd take what they did to us over what they made the others do any day." He bites his lip and sighs. "You pick your poison. Whichever fate you think you can stomach. In the end though, we all needed each other to survive. A kind of strange, symbiotic relationship."

Neither fate seems to be survivable to Madge, but she keeps that to herself.

"Birdy's lucky she's smart," he tells her. "She wouldn't've survived any other way."

"No?" Madge asks.

Anton shakes his head, his forehead wrinkling. "She tell you about her sister?"

When her silence answers for her, he takes a long breath.

"When Birdy was about ten, I think, some Peacekeepers caught her and her older sister on the way back to the house." He stops, his face pulled in disgust before continuing. "Raped her sister. Birdy said she could hear her screaming from where they made her wait by the road. Had to drag her back to the house after, and two days later, sister hung herself in the barn."

The pencil drops from Madge's hand and she feels her mouth drop open.

"Oh," is all she manages to say.

Anton nods, continuing, his nose wrinkled up. "Her brother, tracked the bastards down after that, with a couple of friends, drug them to death behind a couple of horses. When the other Peacekeepers caught him, they took him and the other boys to the middle of town and lynched them. It was apparently required public viewing."

Madge's stomach rolls.

"She has no one to rescue, so making other people protect their family at their own cost, and keeping them alive, that makes sense to her."

Suddenly her calling Gale selfish for running off into war while his brothers and sister are being cared for in Thirteen makes a little more sense.

Nodding, Madge stares at the ground for a moment, still unsure what she'd do in their place.

Finally, she holds out her hand. "Can I still have some calamari?"

#######

Training with the guns continues for Madge, though she thinks she may have hit a plateau.

It doesn't matter though, she's more interested in the plans to get into the Capitol.

"We've taken control of most of the railways," Birdy explained to Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes. That, she told them, gave them an artery to at least the outer edges of the Capitol.

The Capitol had been designed as a giant circle.

"Bit like a pie, if you ask me," she added, her nose wrinkling. "Anyway, it was constructed to mimic the Capitol of the country that was here before Panem, which was supposedly designed similar to some Capitol across the ocean-"

"Is there a point to any of this?" Katy-Jo Lewes asked. "Because I don't really need a speculative history lesson."

Madge just nodded.

Birdy actually looked somewhat annoyed that neither of them found her information as interesting as she did, but after a moment of rolling her eyes skyward and mumbling, she carried on.

Like spokes into a wheel, each District had a railway directly into the heart of the Capitol. Mostly, Birdy told them, because it was dramatic for when the Tributes arrived each year, and not because it was particularly practical. Each of the rails had been more or less secured, granting them a way to move troops in, but not until reconnaissance had been done.

"We can't just send people in blind," she added.

So men and women who had knowledge of the Capitol's street layout and what might be waiting for them had been asked to make the journey in and send back reports on what they found to help create the plan of action.

"We've already told them what we know," Birdy explained. "There are a lot of wide boulevards and open spaces, which as far as I can tell, will be bad for us and good for them."

Large streets meant the Capitol could move its troops easier while making it difficult for the rebels' smaller groups to move around.

"Especially if they put out goodies for us."

"Goodies?" Both Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes had frowned.

Birdy nodded. "We have one Gamemaker, they have dozens of them. They may have been waiting their turn to step into the big boy chair, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous."

It was clear what she thought, even if she didn't say it. The Capitol and all its streets are going to be turned into their own kind of Arena.

After an afternoon of mediocre training with her gun, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes end up back in their little bunk, pouring over maps of the Capitol.

They're leaving from Four, though when is anyone's guess, and heading into the section of the city labeled with a large 'I' before venturing further into the city.

"For 'Idiot'," Birdy told them. "Because that's what the person in charge of labeling is."

The 'I' sector is filled with libraries and museums as well as the sprawling university.

Madge won't admit it, but she's curious about what they'll find. From Birdy's descriptions and what little she remembers from a trip a lifetime ago, it's a wonderland.

"But just like wonderland, it's twisted and frightening," Birdy said bitterly.

"Do you think they'll have guards around them?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, her voice soft with wonder as her golden eyes scan over the names of museums and libraries on the map, memorizing it.

The only answer Madge can give her is a shrug. It depends on how much of their history the Capitol, President Snow, wants to retain. The libraries and museums hold proof of the Games, from the first right up until the most recent Quarter Quell, they're documentation of the Capitol's glory and the Districts' weakness.

Other than the warm and fuzzies they probably provide those in the Capitol, though, Madge can't see much strategic value in them. She can't imagine guards being sacrificed to protect relics and books when they could be used to protect the President.

Katy-Jo Lewes sighs. "We're gonna die."

"Probably," an even voice cuts through the dark.

They both look over, to the dark doorway leading out to the empty beach and the cloud dimmed moonlight.

"But at least we'll be in the right place to be preserved for posterity," Birdy adds, probably with a grin, though it's impossible to tell in the dark. Death only seems to bother her if it isn't caused by her own choices it seems.

"You have a very strange sense of humor," Katy-Jo Lewes says, her lips tugged down into a deep frown.

Birdy just shrugs then turns, walks back out and onto the beach.

Sighing, Katy-Jo Lewes crawls onto the top bunk and flops over. "'Night, Madgie."

Madge folds up the maps, carefully places them in Birdy's patched and filthy gray bag and tosses it under the bed before trying to go to sleep herself.

Sleep refuses to come though.

For an hour she rolls, one side to the other, then to her back, stomach, until she finally sits up and crawls to the end of the bed and puts her arms to the windowsill, resting her chin on them as she gazes out at the sea.

It glitters silvers, whites, and purple-black under the moon, which has finally escaped from behind the clouds. In the distance she can see the lights of fishing vessels, out trying to catch enough food that the District can keep not just itself, but others, alive through the rest of the war.

There's something settling about the gentle noises the water makes as it splashes up onto the shore, a rhythmic, breathing quality to it that almost lulls Madge to sleep, but she catches sight of a pair of small figures sitting at the water's edge, apparently deep in a heated discussion, and her mind wakes again.

Quietly, so she doesn't wake Katy-Jo Lewes, Madge crawls out of bed and softly pads out the door.

Her feet sink into the cool sand and she wiggles her toes. It's a sensation she's still getting used to. In Twelve there was no sand like this, nothing as wonderfully strange as the shifting earth that pushed up against the sea, and she wonders what Katniss and Peeta had made of it when they'd visited.

As quickly as the thought forms she pushes it away. It's too hard to think of them as they were when they're both so broken now. It's a distraction she can't afford, heartache she can't deal with, not now anyway.

Feet kicking the sand, Madge treads across the stretch of beach and out to where the pair sit.

They both turn, having felt her infringing on their spot.

Birdy's expression is still tinged with anxiety, but there's relief in her eyes when she realizes it's Madge.

"Magdalene, is something wrong? Come sit with us." She scoots away from the man, who Madge realizes is Anton, and pats the ground between them.

Unlike Birdy, he doesn't look relieved, but a little disappointed. His dark eyebrows scrunch together and he gives Birdy a pointed look.

"We still have some things to discuss, Birdy," he says, his voice straining a bit.

"That can wait," she waves it off. "What's the matter, Madge?"

She's being entirely too nice, too concerned, and Madge gets the feeling she's interrupted something a little personal. Something Birdy clearly is eager to avoid.

"Nothing," Madge mutters. "I was just taking a walk-"

"I'll walk with you," Birdy says, jumping up and dusting sand from her pants.

Anton's mouth turns down more, but he doesn't say anything, just watches sadly as Birdy links her arm with Madge's and gives him a bright smile.

"I'll see you in the morning, Anton."

With a tug, she pulls Madge along the shore, water lapping at their bare feet.

"Did I interrupt something?" Madge finally asks, once Anton is well behind them.

Birdy shakes her head. "No, just discussing the push, recon and all. Boring stuff."

Glancing behind her and finding Anton shrinking, walking in the opposite direction, shoulders hunched and head down. Madge frowns. "He seemed a little upset just for talking about recon."

Waving her hand, Birdy rolls her eyes. "He'll get over it." When she notices Madge's scowl at the dismissal, she sighs. "Oh, don't look at me like that."

They walk for several minutes, finally stopping where the open beach sinks and the seawall protecting the village above starts.

Deciding she isn't going to get to the truth of whatever Birdy and Anton were talking about, Madge crosses her arms and stares out at the waves, studying the crests as they crash down on one another.

"Do you really think we're going to die?" Madge asks as a brisk breeze blows in, ruffles her hair and her nightclothes.

"Oh, probably," Birdy answers sounding completely unbothered by the thought of her own impending death. "But I'm tired. Death might not be so bad."

"You don't mean that," Madge insists. "You want to be part of the new country, don't you? Make it better than what you're helping take apart?"

She laughs, a sad, broken sounding thing. "Madge, people like me, like all the Victors, even our precious Mockingjay, we don't need our fingerprints anywhere on whatever may come after." Her eyes close. "Besides, who said we're going to win this thing?"

A chill runs up Madge's back. "You don't think we're going to win?"

Birdy shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not."

She's being evasive, playing games and talking in circles, and Madge groans before turning away from her and heading back to the bunk.

"Madge!" Birdy calls after her once she's several yards away.

Turning, she finds Birdy, grease hair fluttering behind her as she runs to catch up.

Her feet sink into the ground as she stops, catches her breath, and smiles weakly.

"Listen," she finally says as her breathing levels out, "you and everyone else thinks they're the hero in this story, but you aren't, they aren't, and I'm sure as hell not. This story doesn't have heroes, just people who are less awful than others."

"Then why are you bothering to fight?" Madge snaps. If everything is hopeless, even if they win, then why is she wasting her time trying to change things at all? Isn't that essentially what she'd told Gale?

"Because it's what I do," Birdy's voice is strained. She looks out at the water, her eyes shining with moonlight. "Fighting is what I do, it's what all of us do, but being the best at not dying? That doesn't give us the right to lead."

Feeling a little deflated, Madge crosses her arms again, shielding herself from the night air.

"Everyone in this thing, from me to Haymitch to Alma Coin, is knee deep in blood. We aren't fit to create, only destroy."

Her words sink in as the sea crashes on itself, rolls and recedes, slowing the night to a crawl.

"That's just what they made you, though," Madge finally says. "You can be whoever you want once this is all over."

If they win.

"Some things can't be changed," Birdy mutters. "Not everything that's broken can be put back together. Even if we win, that doesn't mean we can rewrite who we are. Because none of us are good people, and even if we rewrite history to make it look like we are, there will still be people who know the truth."

Somewhere deep in her soul, Madge knows there's at least a little truth in Birdy's words. The Capitol has painted the Rebels, those brave souls that had fought it in the Dark Days, as monsters, idiots that charged into a battle they had no hope of winning, but that hadn't killed their ideals. Even if their names and faces have been wiped from the history books, turned into a grotesque caricature, and their sins revisited on the Districts in the shape of the Games, what they were is still in the collective consciousness of the people they fought for, just like what the Victors had been forced to be would live on past the Capitol's fall.

For better or worse, the truth and memories, good and bad, would carry on, despite, or in spite of, the efforts of those in control.

"The kindest thing I could ever hope for, win or lose, is that I'm allowed to be blotted out of existence." Birdy smiles sadly. "But mercy has never really favored me."

#######

The sun is just barely peeking over the edge of the horizon, making the water glitter and glisten as it bounces off it and filters through the thin curtain that covers the open window of the bunk, when someone pokes Madge in the side.

"Get up or I throw you off," Birdy's voice says, very close and mixing with the squawks of the horrible white birds outside.

Madge's eyes pop open. Despite being tired from her late night stroll on the beach, she's had a little too much experience with Birdy's preferred method of waking people, up she'll get.

"What?" She grumbles, holding her hand up to blot out the early rays of obnoxious morning.

Birdy is out of her normal attire, dark pants, buttoned up shirt, and heavy boots, and into something much less rugged but no less practical.

She's in dark pants and shirt made of smooth, tight material, boots that look much less bulky and a set of large goggles with strange glass in them. Over her arm is a bundle of what looks to be more dark clothing and dangling from one hand are a couple pairs of goggles.

"Upsy-daisy, ladies, it's time to test out our railway."

#######

The train starts at the station on the far edge of District Four, with the little village Madge, Katy-Jo Lewes, and Birdy have been staying in. It follows along the shore, twisting and turning for hours, clicking along happily. Madge supposes it's a blessing the train is there, by car or horseback, the trip would take hours, maybe days considering some of the cliffs they pass by.

There, they pick up another pair, a man and woman, apparently professors that had abandoned the Capitol in favor of the rebels. The next town had a woman a little older than Birdy and Katy-Jo Lewes, though painfully Capitol with scarlet hair and pink skin.

"I'm a librarian," she told them.

Katy-Jo Lewes and Madge exchange a look at that, but then shrug. She's a librarian, of course.

It goes on like that for the better part of the morning, starting and stopping at little fishing villages dotted along the edge of District Four, picking up others who would be helping canvas the Capitol as well as dropping off others for new jobs, until they reach the edge of the District and head north.

"Crispy," Birdy points to a man, much older than Madge but years younger than her parents, "Sebastian, Eamon, Horace, and Jemma will each go with a group to act as a guard to them while they canvas."

They're former Peacekeepers, friends Birdy had made over the years apparently, even if she won't categorize them as such, and the best chance they have to be safe when in the Capitol.

One of the little professors, the woman with silver hair and a pinched face, raises a hand.

"Phoebe," she says as she lifts her little pez-nez glasses to the edge of her nose and tilts her head, her nose in the air, as she looks down them, "there are only four guards and five groups. Those numbers don't work, child."

Birdy stares at her flatly for a moment. "What am I, professor?"

The woman frowns and glances at the companion. Her eyebrows pinch together. "I'm not sure I understand?"

"I'm a Victor. I don't need a guard," Birdy tells her coolly. "I don't run from people, they run from me."

#######

The trip up, then along the western edge of District Ten takes less than a day. They cut across the southern edge of Seven for another half a day before finally hitting the mountains that protect the Capitol.

It feels like an eternity as they speed through the dark tunnel, the dim lights of the train flickering on and off ominously before they die completely, plunging the group into darkness.

The dark is suffocating, a tomb, and for a moment she thinks of Gale.

He'd had to spend the better part of a year in the mines of District Twelve, and if everything hadn't happened with Katniss, with the Quell, with the bombing, then he would still be dropping into them. At this very moment, if nothing had changed, then he'd be toiling away another day of his life for the Capitol instead of fighting against it.

She shakes her head and tries to focus on anything but Gale. What was and what may still be are distractions to the task at hand that she can't afford at the moment.

After an hour of trying to picture the maps she and Katy-Jo Lewes had been memorizing by the light of a small lantern, trying to picture the train station they would arrive at sooner rather than later, she drifts into a lull.

Her mind drifts to Thirteen and she wonders what her mother has been doing, probably making candy. At least she hopes so. Mr. Abernathy is probably plotting, and Madge wonders if Birdy has let him know that she's taking her right into the heart of the fight, right to the Capitol's doorstep. Unlikely, he'd have stolen a hovercraft and made his way to put a stop to that if she had told him.

Much as she tries to focus on them and only them, she can't.

Vick and Rory seep in, playing games and getting into trouble during their classes, still making their mother mad with their antics. Posy might've been allowed to start at the early entry program for school by now. Prim is probably getting more privileges in the hospital wing. Madge wonders if they ever think of her.

Then come Gale and Katniss. She tries not to think of them, but they're tangled up in the others, impossible to ignore.

They've probably grown closer, training together and spending every waking moment together, just as it should be.

A knot forms in the bottom of Madge's stomach and an all together too familiar ache fills her chest. This is why she avoids these thoughts, there are bigger things to think of than her breaking heart.

With another shake of her head, she thinks of Peeta and wonders if whatever cure those doctors of Birdy's had suggested has worked. She hopes so, even if it's just a little. Peeta, out of everyone, deserves a happy ending to this mess.

Just as Madge nods off, drifts into an uncomfortable sleep filled with unpleasant visions of Peeta screaming in agony and her mother sobbing herself to sleep at the news that Madge has died during her mission, someone shakes her awake.

"Madgie," Katy-Jo Lewes is jabbing her in the shoulder, but she isn't looking at her. Instead, her eyes are focused, wide with wonder, glowing golden, on the window across from them.

Blinking the sleep away, letting her nightmares evaporate from her mind, Madge looks to it and nearly gasps.

Despite the electricity being off in most of the Capitol, its glittering like the ocean had outside the bunk house as the setting sun bounces off the windows of the buildings that reach for the sky.

"It's actually kind of beautiful."

Madge looks to her left, where Birdy is staring out the window, her gaze settled on the city growing in the distance.

She's probably seen it a hundred times, maybe a thousand, but she still looks enchanted with the image of the glowing city hidden in the mountains. It's been a home for her, maybe even accepted her more than her own District for years, this can't be easy.

"Are you going to be okay?" Madge asks, not really thinking.

A fragile little smile ticks at the edges of her lips. "Would it matter if I weren't?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Again, thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for putting up with me and making this make sense.

The Capitol smells, thick and musky, like heat and incense, uncomfortable.

"Does it always smell like this?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks as they mill around the train station.

Other than the strange smell, it's nice. There must be a propo being shown because the bright white lights are still on, washing everything out, blues and grays, even the vibrant paintings on the walls, advertisements for shows and plays that are undoubtedly no longer showing.

But what does Madge know? The Capitol might want their show to go on. It wouldn't surprise her.

"Well," Birdy sniffs the air and makes a face, "yes and no. I imagine with their limited electricity, bathing has taken a backseat. They've always gone a little heavy on the perfume though."

Crispin, who seems to be the leader of the renegade Peacekeepers, divides them up into groups then assigns them an area to head in.

"You'll report in on these," he holds up a small device, rounded and dark. His thumb clicks the across the edge and it opens up.

There are two circles, one has a dozen little buttons, each presumably with different functions, and on the other side is what looks to be a mirror.

Madge almost gasps when she realizes what it is. She quickly looks over to Birdy, and for half a second her eyes glance over. A little smirk flicks up on Birdy's lips, then she winks before turning her attention fully back to Crispin.

"They're communicators. They link you back to stations in the Districts and everything is encoded, an unbreakable code."

"Nothing is unbreakable," the male professor states loftily.

"Well this one," Birdy tells him sharply, "is."

Crispin grins.

"Listen," he begins calmly. "They are unbreakable. We've been studying the Capitol's codes for years; we have it down to a science. And besides, all their best scientists are with us now."

"Well," the librarian sniffs, "how do they work?"

Birdy jumps to the front of the group, turns on her heels and grins out at them as she snatches the faux-compact from Crispin's hand.

"I'll take it from here, Crispy," she tells him, waving him off and taking a deep breath.

"These little babies are based on a design Distrito Tres came up with years ago. It's not too complicated, but listen closely 'cause I'm not going to repeat myself."

She holds the disc in her hand, clicks it open again, and smiles.

With a smirk, she spins it in her hand and holds it out for the group to see.

The screen is blank, nothing more than a mirror.

"To open the line of communication you put your lips together and-"

A four note whistle, the same one that had echoed through the Arena during Katniss and Peeta's first Games, fills the train station.

The screen changes, words over faces, what looks to be a transfer station in the background and a man with a thick beard and a wide grin. "Device is working fine, Miss Alameda."

"Good to know," Birdy mutters dryly as she snaps the compact shut. She tilts her head and gives the group an even look. "You'll call the stations, if you run into trouble or need to troubleshoot, and they'll contact you only in the event of an extreme emergency."

Which given her tone, means they'll never contact the groups.

The little devices, Birdy quickly explains, have more uses than just talking with the transfer stations. They can detect incoming hovercrafts, both Capitol and from Thirteen, as well as detect 'pods'.

"All the 'pods' as they're called, are transmitting a unique signal, which we know from our darling Gamemaker Heavensbee," she tells the group as she jumps on top of a bench shaped like some kind of fish-woman. "They'll alert you by vibrating in your hand to let you know when you're approaching a pod and you'll pull out this little gem."

Crispin pulls a small netted bag from his pack and tosses it to her. Madge squints and catches a glint of something shimmery and silver inside.

"Pod poppers." She frowns. "I had no say in the naming."

When she opens the bag, she pulls out a small sphere, no larger than the nail on her own little finger. She explains they're small electronic scramblers.

"Squeeze it to encode it so that it can disarm the pod, safely and quietly, all the while making the Capitol think they've just killed off a dozen rebels."

She squeezes it and it glows a metallic purple, then squeezes it again, causing it to dull back into its matte gray state, unarmed and useless.

"What about the pods we don't know about?" The male professor asks, eyes focused on the little popper. "Do they work on those?"

Birdy grins and snaps the black compact-like device shut before tossing it back at Crispin.

"The detector will alert you to an unknown signal, the pods are on a particular wavelength, or something-I don't know, I'm not an expert-and they'll be able to pick that up, but not the disarming codes."

The problem, it turns out, and the reason for the groups going in a sweeping the city, is getting those codes.

She cheerfully tells them that their job is to throw a popper, while standing at a safe distance ("As far as you can get, I imagine.") at the pod. Instead of deactivating the pod, they'll be set off.

"That seems like the opposite of a good idea," the librarian says, looking more than a little concerned.

Neither Birdy nor the ex-Peacekeepers seem to think so, though.

The poppers will allow the pod to deploy, copy down the unique codes for the unknown pods and relay them to the transfer station so that they can be added to the encryption database for all the other groups throughout the city's detectors.

"It's an explosive of some kind," Crispin clarifies when asked about the 'poppers'. "Very stable, we're told. They'll only go off under the exact conditions you've just been told."

The other former Peacekeepers begin passing out small bags, packed full of poppers, and the lone girl hands each person a detector.

Once everyone is in possession of their lifelines to the outside, Crispin splits them up, one of his people with a group of two, then hands out a projector to each group.

He flips his own on and points out the direction they each need to take, warns them to keep an eye out for Capitol troops, then wishes them luck.

And just like that, Madge finds herself at the center of the battle for the Capitol.

#######

Birdy practically skips down the wide boulevard. Madge supposes this is like a homecoming of sorts for her.

The road beneath them is wet, it must've rained earlier, and the pavement glistens under the moonlight. District Five has cut off the power; all the lights in the train station clicked out the second they reached the door. The propo for the night must be over.

Birdy takes it upon herself to begin educating Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes on their surroundings, pointing out each building and giving a quick history of it.

"That's the Museum Tributa, where they keep all the relics from the Games," she says, pointing to a looming building to their left.

There are white pillars, wide arches over high steps that open up onto an expansive walkway and then to a dozen sets of broad golden doors. Above each door is a number, one for each District.

"Does each open to a room?" Madge asks, stopping to look at the building. It really is magnificent, if a bit morbid. Her mind instantly flashes with the image from one of her father's old books, the picture of a small, elaborate building with a family name over the door and the word 'mausoleum'.

A mausoleum, a house for the dead, is what Madge decides is exactly what the Museum Tributa is.

Birdy shakes her head. "With as few Victors as the non-Career Districts have? Be kinda useless, wouldn't it?" She jerks her head. "Come on."

As they begin again, Birdy carries on with her lesson.

"The doors all open to the same place, a gallery of each Game. First right through to the delightful last." She grins over at Madge. "If we survive this I should bring Dorothy here. They have a charming exhibit dedicated to his favorite star-crossed idiots."

"I thought you liked Peeta?" Madge asks suddenly, ignoring the jab at Gale.

Shrugging, Birdy doesn't lose stride. "I do. Doesn't mean I don't think that circus he started wasn't absolutely annoying." Her nostrils flare. "When they came to town after their Victory Tour the Via Itinera was backed up all the way to the Botanical Gardens and-"

"You're biggest complaint about them is that they made you drive too long?" Madge stops in her tracks and glares. That's the stupidest thing she's ever heard.

Birdy grins from over her shoulder. "Keep walking, and no, adding hours to my drive isn't the highest of their sins, but making me miss my dental appointment ranks pretty high."

Whether she's serious or not, Madge isn't sure, but she wouldn't put it past her.

They carry on, Birdy pointing out interesting sights along the way.

A theater house, a library of architecture, a library of musical arts, a library of things you don't discuss in public…

"And there's a museum for that too?" Katy-Jo Lewes' express is somewhere between worried and impressed.

"That and more, Katherine-Jo, that and more."

She leads them to the end of the row, to where another wide boulevard intersects.

Overhead there are little lights, all off, crisscrossing the street, dangling with shiny trinkets. Light poles line the sides, wrapped in brightly colored vines and flowers along with urns of exotic looking plants Madge has never seen before.

The windows, stretching up to the sky, are all dark. Not so much as a curtain flutters.

"Where is everyone?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks.

"Evacuated," Birdy explains simply. "Well, I guess you could call it that. They left to avoid the 'demon rebels' as we've been painted. To the center of the city, to the shelters from the first war, or to wherever they can pack them."

She pulls the compact from her pocket, flips it open and shakes it.

A voice, it sounds like Claudius Templesmith, is talking, giving instructions on emergency exits, take this road or that, no hovercrafts have been seen in the skies…

It goes on and on, an endless loop of directions for the hapless masses of the Capitol. Claudius' voice is dull, lifeless as it drones on, not like the chipper, manic man that's announced the Games since before Madge was born.

"Where are we heading, exactly?" Madge asks.

Birdy is walking a little too purposefully, with too much certainty for it to be random. She pulls out the projector, never losing stride as a map floats in front of her, highlighted with where known pods are, all for the most part, a good ways away from their current position, there are other pinpoints of light, moving in bright, burning white. The groups.

Her hand waves through the map and it shifts, pulls back and shows the entirety of the city.

"There," she points to the center. "The President's Mansion. It's where everyone is heading, actually. We're clearing the path for the troops to set up posts to get this place under our control."

The sections to the north, the fashion and food sectors, have several larger groups cutting through them, the more western groups, in the arts sector, and the eastern groups, trapped in what Birdy had called 'The Treadmill', are smaller and fewer, there's a small sector, though, without any little stars brightening it.

"What's that?" Madge asks, letting her finger float through the hologram and to the darkened area. "Why aren't we clearing it?"

Birdy shrugs. "Well, we are, just not us."

Madge makes a face and Birdy sighs.

"Listen, this is still part of the game. They've got us, recon or whatever they're calling us, clearing the Capitol, but what we're doing doesn't sound so exciting, does it?"

Both Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes exchange a look before shaking their heads.

"Of course not, because it isn't. We're doing things in a very practical, very smart way, and that isn't always glamorous." She stumbles on a manhole cover, but keeps talking. "That area is the glamorous area. Residential, not so many pods, but good for shooting footage since everyone is gone and it's been hammered pretty significantly by the hovercrafts since it's in the east. It looks like a warzone, not like parts of the Capitol that we've tried to preserve. Plus, it was evacuated pretty early on. So other than the traps, not much going on."

Madge looks around at her 'area' of the Capitol. It's deadly still and more than a little creepy, as though the people had simply stood and left mid-motion, deserting even baby carriages in the streets, food molding in stands by the roadway. She supposes they had.

"They'll move more attractive soldiers in and have them do much more heroic things to clear the pods. For all I know, they won't even tell the poor saps that there are safer ways to clear them." She laughs darkly to herself. "All for the sake of propos."

"They're going to shoot propos there?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, her face pulling back in distaste. "And why wouldn't they tell the soldiers about the detectors and the poppers?"

Birdy's eyebrows rise, as if to say, 'well, what did you expect?' before she grins.

"You've never worked in manipulation, Katherine-Jo. There's always need for a little more 'pep' for the starving masses. Even if it costs a few lives." She rolls her eyes. "They'll use every bit of footage they can get to demonize the entire population of the Capitol and strength support for Thirteen and the Rebellion."

#######

Days roll by, clearing the pods, which turns out to be just as systematic and boring as Birdy had anticipated.

"They just…turn off?" Katy-Jo Lewes had asked, looking disappointedly at a now stifled pod.

"Told you, boring."

They skip through their area, from pod to pod, occasionally checking in with a transfer station, and, in Birdy's case, 'liberating' anything she finds to eat.

"This is a chain store, Madgie," she gently tells Madge. "I'm not hurting anyone by taking a few candy bars. Besides, most of this stuff will ruin…eventually, and we don't know how long this little 'Battle of the Boastful' will last."

It still feels wrong to Madge, even if her rations are dry and tasteless and the battle last for months.

"Are you sure you don't want some cheese chips?" Birdy asks, holding out a bag of what look like bright orange, fluffy fingers.

Katy-Jo Lewes happily munches on something prepackaged, the wrapper is electric green and has the yellow words 'Squeeze to heat beef and beans burrito' stamped across the front. She grins, her mouth full of brown mush, and she gestures to the chips with her free hand. "Come on, Madgie."

By that evening she's given in, the tantalizing smell of the 'Squeeze and Eat' burrito winning over her desire not to steal.

Madge loses track of how long they're there, sometimes they don't sleep. Instead they carry on through the deserted city, hearing explosions in the distance, sometimes several, sometimes only one, and then sleep when the sun rises. It makes the time melt together, a mish-mash of endless destruction and stolen foods.

The lights flicker on occasionally, letting the group know that a propo is likely to be broadcasting, though none of them are very eager to watch them.

"Is that Katniss?" Madge asks one evening when the televisions in what looks to be an electronics shop click to life.

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Birdy says with a shrug.

Katy-Jo Lewes and Madge exchange a small look.

"Should she be here?" Katy-Jo Lewes finally asks. "Shouldn't they be keeping her safe? She's our rally girl, isn't she?"

A cold little chuckle breaks the silence of the street as Birdy rolls her eyes. "I get the impression she and Coin don't exactly get along."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, frowning at the televisions.

Looking at Madge, Birdy raises her eyebrows, prompting her. The answer is there, and she wants Madge to find it.

Almost instantly, Madge knows just why Coin would let Katniss loose in a warzone.

She's no longer not expendable. The war is drawing to a close, there'll be a call for a new government, and Katniss isn't likely to support one with Coin in power. Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, the queen in this game, is going to be sacrificed for the sake of Coin's endgame.

It turns Madge's stomach, and she wonders if Katniss knows what Coin is planning. Even if the Capitol doesn't kill their Mockingjay, Madge is certain Coin will find a way to rid herself of her another way.

"We need to help her," Madge blurts out before explaining her sudden panic to Katy-Jo Lewes.

"No can do," Birdy shakes her head. "Your girl is on her own."

"You're just going to let Coin get her killed?" Madge feels panic building up in her stomach. "We can't let that happen. We have to help her."

No matter how irritated she is with Katniss, Madge can't let her wander into a trap like this. She can't do that to her, or her family, or Gale.

Gale.

If Katniss is in the Capitol, Gale will be too. He might not be certain what he feels for Madge, even if she's sure her feelings for him, but she can't let him caught up in the trap Coin has set up for Katniss. She can't do that to his family, they still need him too much. The security of Thirteen isn't everything, Rory and Vick had shown her that the night they'd begged her to stop Gale from being part of the team that went in to save Peeta.

They need their big brother, Prim needs her sister, and Madge loves them both, despite the heartache they've caused her, the heartache she's caused herself.

"Why?"

Madge feels her mind blank at the question. "What?"

Arching an eyebrow, Birdy crosses her arms and tilts her head. "Why do we have to help her? She's served her purpose. This war is winding down. Honestly, she's better off dead than having to deal with the consequences of a boy toy that's been conditioned to hate her and a public that's as likely to turn on her as hoist her over their heads."

"Why would they turn on her?" Madge asks, unable to see the logic in her words.

It makes no sense. The people that matter love Katniss. She's one of them. She's their symbol.

"Because that's what people do, Madge. They cling to leaders during danger, and when the threat is gone, do you know what they do?" A disgusted expression fixes in her face. "They tear them down. And believe me, if she survives this, Coin will make sure every shitty thing she's ever done will come out. Her trips to the woods will get twisted so badly people will think she was a Capitol supplier, and her boy troubles, you don't even want to know what she'd have people believing about that."

"They wouldn't-they won't," Madge counters. "They'll never believe Coin over Katniss."

A mirthless laugh cracks the air and Birdy smiles at the stars.

"It won't come from Coin. Anonymous sources are a politician's best friend."

"Because that's what you'd do?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, an unreadable expression shading her face.

A thick silence settles over them as Birdy considers the question.

Finally, she nods.

"No. You're better than that," Katy-Jo Lewes says, disbelieving. "You wouldn't do that to an innocent person."

"Wouldn't I?" Birdy shrugs. "Yeah. Have I? Yeah. Victors and their families aren't the only people I've spent the past few years tearing down, Katherine-Jo."

"That was for the Capitol, though," Madge reasons. "This-we're going to build a new country, it can be different. You said that's what you wanted."

Snorting, Birdy's dark expression falls from the stars and settles in Madge.

"It's what I want, but I'm a realist. There will always be Coins and Snows and Plutarch Heavensbees. It's the nature of humanity. Following whatever or whoever steps up to the plate and seems to know what's going on, whoever can knock down the most competition."

"If you think this is all hopeless then why the hell are you fighting, Phoebe!" Katy-Jo Lewes snaps.

"Because I don't know what else to do!"

Tears are dropping off her cheeks and she's swatting at them furiously. She sniffles wetly and shakes her head.

"I'm stuck in this-this cycle. Maybe I'm bored. Maybe I'm a masochist. Maybe I'm tired." Her breath shudders. "Maybe I want the end to be a wedding and not a funeral. Maybe I wanna be wrong for once."

Madge flings herself at her, pulling Birdy into a hug and biting back a sob.

"Why do we learn history?" That's what Madge's father had always asked her. "To learn from it."

If you don't know the past you just keep repeating it. No one knows the mistakes of the past better than people like Birdy and Mr. Abernathy. Mr. Latier and Finnick Odair. Even if they are the creations of the Capitol.

Their lives, this game they're part of, can only end in tragedy, but the scope of it hasn't been determined. Not yet.

And only people like them can truly serve as warnings as to what can come from the past mistakes.

"Prove yourself wrong, Birdy," Madge finally whispers. "Make the ending what you want it to be."

Katy-Jo Lewes suddenly throws her arms around them, a wet cheek smearing across Madge's matted hair.

She doesn't say anything, just clings to them, crying quietly.

Finally, Birdy pulls back and rubs her face, trying vainly to wipe away the tears.

"You two ever mention this, I'll cut out your tongues myself," she tells them, a little weakly.

Katy-Jo Lewes gives that a watery laugh. "You are so full of shit."

They stand there for a few minutes, brushing away tears and sniffling, before Birdy sighs, setting her chin steady.

"Alright then," she takes a long breath. "Let's go try and change history."

Tiring on her heels, she takes off.

Madge rubs her nose, and glances at Katy-Jo Lewes who grins brightly, her eyes still bright and wet. Her smile doesn't dim as she looks at Madge.

"About damn time."

#######

They further east they travel, the more the signs of war show.

Apparently, the library and museum sector had been one of the sectors the rebels had been trying to preserve.

"Well, of course," Birdy had shrugged. "It's history."

"It's inaccurate," Madge reminds her.

That doesn't seem to matter. "Our version of the truth won't be much more accurate."

Madge starts to argue with her, but she's probably right. If people like Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee are the hands that write the history of the war and what came before, the truth, awful or wonderful, will be skewed to favor them, no matter how little they deserve it.

Like the library and museum sector they'd just left, the one they pass through first is a ghost town.

A bike, one wheel busted, is tossed to the side of the road and clothing, much more than had been visible in the other sector, is strewn around. Bright yellow feathers, Birdy says they're probably from a hat, blow weakly in the wind, though most stay trapped against a grate under a bench. Shoes of all sizes, though mostly small, tiny things, appear every few blocks, lost during a frantic escape.

On some roads cars are stopped, lined up, doors open and insides empty, waiting patiently for their owners return.

Birdy leans in one, rifling through compartments and trying to start them.

"We can't steal a car," Madge tells her. She has to draw the line somewhere.

"No, we can't," Birdy agrees, standing and straightening out. "No gas, and the roads are a mess."

She squints into the sky, at the streaks of gold and white from the sinking sun at their back, and sighs.

"The traffic must've been awful."

"I've never seen so many cars," Katy-Jo Lewes says, opening a vivid purple car's door and slipping inside. She smiles and wiggles into what looks to be expensive leather. "I could get used to this."

Feeling frustrated and tired, Madge glares at them. "Can we get going?"

Birdy's eyebrows rise.

"I just-I want to get to them as quick as I can." They need to be warned as soon as possible.

"Well, it's going to take us a few days to get to them on foot," Birdy points out. "So no use running ourselves ragged."

"A few days?" Madge asks, her stomach sinking. "How few?"

"You mean how many, and," Birdy's eyes flick up as she mentally calculates something, probably fictitious, "I don't know, two, maybe three. It's a huge city and we're walking, plus we have to avoid not only our own troops that are moving in, but also any pods that the other groups haven't gotten to."

The thought of spending two, possibly three, days wandering through the Capitol while Gale and Katniss could be killed makes Madge's stomach roll and bile rise in her throat.

"There isn't a faster way?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, sensing Madge's distress and patting her gently on the shoulder.

Shrugging, Birdy shakes her head.

"Other than the trains we're using, all rail travel is down, we don't have a hovercraft, and as you can see," she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, "our efforts have created something of a traffic jam."

Giving Madge a sympathetic smile, she points a bit north, toward what looks to be a raised roadway.

"I would suggest using the Vias, but most of them have been heavily damaged by our overenthusiastic efforts, and what hasn't been is highly suspected to be set up to collapse by the Capitol. So pluses all around."

So, feeling increasingly anxious, Madge follows as Birdy weaves then through neighborhood after neighborhood.

If it weren't for the impending disaster building around them, Madge would almost say it was interesting.

She'd been to the Capitol, once, when she was very young, with Mr. Abernathy. It had been a strained visit, and she'd never been told exactly why she'd been summoned, but she did remember the lights and colors.

Unlike Twelve, which was a dull palette of grays and blues, washed out colors and faded buildings and people, the Capitol glowed.

Even now, without electricity and people, the buildings seem to give off a lively energy. Violet and turquoise, crimson and canary yellow still glow in the setting sun, and then in the gentle glow of the moon. Madge can almost imagine the windows lit up, curtains open and music playing, a party or two spilling out into the street.

She wonders, her stomach curling at the thought, if the people who live in each dazzling place have made it to the shelters. She hopes so.

As darkness settles in and the temperature begins to dip, Birdy goes up to a door of solid glass, like a solid sheet of ice.

"It's good to have houses. Maybe we can sleep in a bed tonight instead of on a store floor."

Madge barely has time to formulate a response, tell her that they cannot break into someone's home and sleep, when Birdy pushes the glass open and steps in.

"This-Are you sure we should be going in people's houses?" Katy-Jo Lewes looks as uncomfortable as Madge. "This isn't like taking food from a store, Birdy."

"Don't worry," she assures them. "We aren't stealing, just sleeping."

Exchanging a wary glance, Madge follows after Katy-Jo Lewes, up the steps and into the house, pulling the door shut behind her.

It's extravagant. There's a chandelier hanging over the entry, giant dewdrop glass dangling overhead, threatening to rain down on them as they walk to the staircase, a winding, twisting set of steps that lead to an overlooking banister.

"People lived here?" She asks.

"Yep," Birdy answers simply as she leads them up the steps.

Upstairs is no less grand.

A gold and silver rug stretches down the hall, ending right before a balcony, apparently always open to the outdoors. Elaborate doors lead into each room, and while Katy-Jo Lewes goes to the very end and pushes in, Madge opens the first door.

The room is roughly twice the size of her room back home, if she still had a room. There are brightly painted scenes on the wall, that after a moment, Madge recognizes as characters from a Saturday morning cartoon. She'd never enjoyed it much, but it was a staple.

It was mostly a tool to sell sugary cereal and toys to Capitol children, and to taunt children in the Districts with an unattainable vision, but it was better than Mrs. Oberst's weekly programs.

Vibrant cartoon people smile out at her, and as Madge takes a step toward it to get a better look, her foot lands on something squishy.

Reaching down, she picks up the unfortunate toy.

It's some kind of animal, maybe a dog, but Madge isn't sure. Clearly it's well loved, its fur is worn and there are scratches on its glassy eyes, and one of its earsseems to have been sewn back on.

Tears filling her eyes, Madge glances around the room.

More toys than she'd ever had are thrown around, blocks and books and crayons and a few clothes that seem to have been dropped as someone rushed out of the room.

Hugging the animal to her chest, Madge closes her eyes.

This wasn't the room of a monster. This wasn't the room of someone who'd done irredeemable things and deserved to die. This was a little boy's room, a little kid like Vick or Posy.

As the tears start to slip out, Madge opens her eyes and finds his bed, half made and a pillow on the ground.

"Please be okay," she whispers to him.

She doesn't know him, but he's innocent. He doesn't deserve to suffer for the sins of the people who'd made this mess.

Sinking onto his bed, Madge picks up his pillow, and still hugging his toy to her chest, cries herself to sleep.

#######

"Madge, wake up," someone tells her, poking her in the side.

Groaning, Madge bats the prodding fingers away. She's comfortable and warm, she isn't leaving anytime soon.

"I'll throw you out, you know I will," the voice tells her, a hint of a laugh behind it.

That gets Madge's attention, sitting bolt upright in the bed, stuffed animal still in her hands.

Making a clicking noise with her tongue, Birdy takes the animal from Madge and smiles at it sadly.

"Makes you think, doesn't it?"

It takes a moment for Madge's mind to catch up and she nods.

Smoothing out the animal's fur, Birdy continues to stare at it.

"They're just people," she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. "They're stupid and faulty and strange, but they're just people." A little crease forms between her eyes and her voice seems thicker. "Maybe I'm messed up in the head from being around them for so long, but I can't-I don't trust Coin to do right by them. Suffering doesn't have to be paid with suffering. Does that make sense?"

Madge nods.

Birdy has enough blood on her hands for a few lifetimes.

"If we tear them apart, make them pay, revenge over justice, then we're no better than them."

#######

They spend the next two days traipsing through the detritus of clothing littering the city, which gets thicker as they inch closer to their destination.

They watch for the flicker of light, signaling that a propo is being shown, only stopping to refill their canteens during the short time the water is operational. They ignore the televisions, they're full of propaganda and nothing more.

It's much slower going than Birdy had thought. Some roads are completely impassable, buildings collapsed and strange, unsafe smells blocking their ways, forcing them further north, adding hours, and eventually days, to their journey.

"We're never going to make it," Katy-Jo Lewes complains as she swallows the last bit of water from her canteen. "And I'm going to shrivel up and die."

"That would take a week, maybe a little less if you're sweating," Birdy tells her, as though it's a comforting and pleasant topic.

Katy-Jo Lewes lips tick up. "Well I've heard it's one of the more pleasant ways to die at least."

"Well you try it and let me know," Birdy mutters. "My brush with it was anything but pleasant."

Madge tries not to laugh, it isn't funny, she'd watched the tape of Birdy's game and seen how dangerously close she'd come to dying from the elements, but something about the casual way she says it, complaining about it as if it had been a bad camping trip with Katy-Jo Lewes, strikes her as funny.

As she dissolves into giggles, both girls look at her, a little worried.

"Maybe you should drink some more water," Birdy says, offering Madge her canteen.

Trying to stifle her laughter, Madge shakes her head and pushes the canteen away. "No, no, see-"

She's cut off by the ground suddenly shuddering under foot and the air rumbling before they're all knocked to their feet.

"What was that?" Katy-Jo Lewes shouts as the boom continues to ripple around them.

Her question is answered by a strange hum that cuts through the crashing of buildings and twisting of metal. A hovercraft.

It zooms away, out of the cloud of smoke ballooning up from the source of the boom, an acrid trail drifting down in its wake.

Before Madge can truly process what she's seen, Birdy has jumped up and is running toward the bombing.

Chasing after her, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes catch her when they turn the corner several blocks up.

The building is a complete loss, crumbling walls and exposed beams, the guts of what looks to be an expensive hotel exposed to the outside world.

While Birdy is crawling up into the debris, Madge stares, mouth agape, at the wreckage.

Some of the rooms are perfect still, compartments in a doll house waiting for a child to move tiny plastic people in each one. Others are smoldering losses, furniture burning and blown to pieces. She watches as the delicate looking picture of a lily falls from the wall of a second story room and cracks loudly as it smashes on the floor. A mirror must get too hot, and explodes startling Madge out of her reverie.

Stepping forward, she almost shouts when her foot comes in contact with something squishy.

Looking down, for a second she thinks it's a cushion, blown from the brightly burning chaise only a few feet away, then she takes a closer look.

It's a hand.

Covering her mouth, she stumbles back into Katy-Jo Lewes, whose color has faded to a sickly faded brown.

"Oh shit."

It's a woman's hand, thin and well manicured, sparkly pink nails coated in a gray film lay limply on the ground, reaching out for help that isn't coming.

Birdy jumps down, rubbing her face and smearing gray dirt across her cheeks and sighs.

"Must've been a safe house." She glances back at the smoldering remains. "Not too safe though."

Katy-Jo Lewes is frozen in shock, but Madge manages to point to the hand, just a foot from Birdy's boot. "She's dead."

"I should think so," Birdy mutters with a nod, squatting down and pushing some of the larger chunks of wall away.

After a few minutes, she uncovers the woman's face, peaceful and young, framed in dusty turquoise hair, gem covered eyelashes resting against her now bloodless cheeks.

That isn't the worst of it though.

Wrapped in her other arm, looking like she's settled in for a nap, is a little girl.

She's not much older than Posy. Like her mother, she's got curly turquoise hair, a few butterfly clips still clinging in it. Her pink dress is ripped at the sleeve, a little blood frozen where it was trickling down her shoulder.

"What do we do for them?" Madge finally manages to ask.

Birdy brushes the little girl's hair away from her face and smiles sadly, sniffling. "Nothing to do." She looks up at the sky in disgust. "You can't help the dead, you just try to keep from making more. That's the best we can do."

#######

The bombings become more frequent as the days drag by.

They stop checking the rubble. Finding more dead, poor Capitol citizens that were too scared or not well enough to travel to the shelters nearer the center of the city, doesn't do anyone any good, and the bombers are too efficient. There are never any survivors.

Despite the fact that buildings are getting hit with more frequency, sleeping outside isn't an option.

"We'll freeze to death," Birdy points out.

So instead, they begin bedding down in the places less likely to be hit. Stores, mostly.

It isn't bad most nights. They stay in a flower shop one night, surrounded by the sickly sweet smell of decaying flora and stale water. Another is spent in a confectionary, the cracked glass on the window and door dubbing it 'Belle's Best Baked Goods'. It's full of molding muffins and cakes, several with Mockinjay symbols painted on them, omens of what was to come.

Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes find a dress shop and begin exploring it as night begins to seep in one evening.

"Look at this!" Katy-Jo Lewes squeals as she pulls a dress of electric yellow from a rack on the wall and holds it to her chest. She throws her head back in a pose. "How do I look? Fashionable? Alluring?"

Fighting off a snort of laughter, both at how ridiculous her friend looks and at the awful shade of the dress, Madge starts to answer, only to be cut off by a yell for help.

"Get up here and help me!" Birdy shouts from somewhere outside.

She'd gone out in search of more food, remembering that there was a shop a few blocks up, but Madge knows she probably isn't calling for help because she's found the largest 'squeeze to heat' burrito to date. That would be too much to hope for.

They jump over piles of debris, giant clumps of earth and broken bits of road that litter the area around the dress shop, until they reach the end of the block and turn, to where Birdy is standing at the edge of a crater. When she spots them coming, she jumps down, leaving them bewildered.

It had been a building, one of the smaller ones, only three or four stories tall, but it's been blasted, half of it now scattered across the street, blocking the way, and part of it crumbled in the hole. In the dimming light of the sun, the fires that are still burning make it something of a lighthouse of destruction for its block.

"What?" Katy-Jo Lewes frowns, nose wrinkled up at the smell of smoldering metal and melting plastic.

"It's Crispy!" Birdy shouts, from somewhere below them.

Looking down, Madge sees dirty blonde hair and a filthy hand reaching up, hoisting something large and limp with it.

Katy-Jo Lewes makes a gasping noise and drops to her knees, reaching over the edge.

"Crispin!" She takes hold of a dark, dust covered hand. "What happened?"

The man, Birdy's Peacekeeper friend that had gone with another group, smiles tiredly up at them as they pull him from the mess.

"Idiot Professor Plum set off one of the unknown pods," he coughs. "Wanted to try an experiment."

"Was that experiment to see if stupidity splatters?" Birdy asks as she rolls over the side, wheezing a bit as she does. She smiles at him. "If so, I think the answer still eludes us."

Crispin rolls his eyes and sits up, clutching his arm and grimacing.

"You hurt, Crisp?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, trying to pry his fingers from it.

"He's got an extra three or four bends in it," Birdy tells her, forcing herself to her feet and dusting herself off. "I'm no doctor, but that seems like a sure sign something is broken."

Crispin laughs, deep and warm, dark eye twinkling at them.

"I'd say you're right." His smile slowly fades as he looks around at them, replaced by confusion. "What are you three doing this far east? You're more than a little out of place."

Birdy shrugs. "Bored." She jerks her head in the direction they'd been heading. "Plus, we were heading to the photoshoot. Our darling Mockingjay is in town and we figured we should go warn her that Coin is probably having her custom casket carved as we speak."

Crispin's dark skin, already a little gray under the ash from the collapsed building, dims a little more and he swallows dryly, looking around at them warily.

"Didn't you hear?"

The jovial air that had surrounded his rescue is suddenly sucked away, replaced with cold dread in the pit of Madge's stomach.

"Hear what?" Birdy asks cautiously, as though she can sense the dark shadow about to fall across their path.

Running his good hand over his face, smearing dust, dirt, and sweat down it, Crispin looks around at them, as if checking one last time to make sure they don't already know his news.

"Crispin," Birdy prompts him, her voice firm and even, "hear what?"

He swallows again, looking around apologetically, then sighs.

"Squad 451 was killed this morning," he finally answers. "They're all dead."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> As always, thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for betaing.

There's no air left in Madge's lungs.

Gale is dead. Katniss is dead. Coin has gotten what she wanted.

No, he can't be dead. Gale is a survivor, he wouldn't die, not this close to the end. …

She stares at the hideous clothes, some on the ground, some hanging half off the rack, strewn wildly around her, in the shop Birdy and Katy-Jo Lewes had taken her into after Crispen had told them what he'd seen only hours earlier on the television.

It hadn't been his imagination, much as Madge had hoped it had been.

She'd run to the closest intact building she could find and waited and, pacing back and forth, for the electricity to surge on and the broadcast to replay.

When it does, Madge dissolves on the spot.

It isn't just Gale and Katniss, but Peeta and Finnick's faces that glow and dissipate on the screen.

She can't think, she can't breathe.

The Hawthornes have lost Gale. Vick and Rory's tearful faces, begging Madge to stop Gale from rescuing Peeta, what feels like a lifetime ago, flood her mind. Their worst fear, that Gale would die for Katniss, has finally come to pass. Just who they'll hate for that more, Gale, or Katniss, or maybe the Everdeens as the only living members of the girl that had stolen their beloved brother, whether they deserved it or not, she isn't sure.

Finnick is gone too. He'd just gotten married. Madge hadn't given the festivities much mind, at the time she'd been actively avoiding all thoughts of Thirteen, but now she wishes she'd given it a little more notice. Annie and Finnick were the only bright spots in the misery that seemed to permeate the world they lived in.

And now he's gone.

A harsh sob wracks Madge's body as a pair of arms wrap around her and Katy-Jo Lewes' warm voice shushes her as she tries to comfort her.

Mr. Abernathy's lost his kids. That thought hurts as much as all the others. He's lost so much in his life, so many people, and now he's lost the first two people he'd let worm their way into his heart in decades.

Madge instantly wishes she'd have called him a little more often when she could. Twice at the beginning of her stay in Ten hadn't been nearly enough. Even if he'd been busy and she'd been avoiding her pathetic heartache, she owed him more than a couple of calls. If she could she'd call him now, she doubts that's an option.

In the periphery of her vision she sees Snow appear, but his words are drowned out by her aching head and blurred vision.

"He can't be dead," she blubbers, snot dripping onto Katy-Jo Lewes' shoulder, probably into her heavy braids.

"Shhhh," is her only response.

Suddenly, the television flickers, and Snow is replaced with Coin, looking gray and hard, her steel eyes showing no sign of genuine remorse for the deaths she'd all but orchestrated.

She begins a eulogy that rings false and cold to Madge's ears, praising Katniss and encouraging rebels to continue fighting in her memory, crafting a martyr from the girl she'd sent to her death.

When she finishes, a picture of Katniss, one that looks as artfully made up as the posters for the Victory Tour had less than a year ago, appears on the screen.

Madge stares at it for a second, hating the mimicry it represented, the reflection of the Capitol and what it had done to Katniss and Gale and Peeta.

Before she can throw something at the screen, she hates that picture and everything the Capitol and Thirteen represent, the television explodes.

Katy-Jo Lewes screams, throwing Madge to the ground and covering her head with an arm, and Crispin falls back, over the ottoman he'd been resting on and onto a pile of discarded dresses, tossed behind him.

Looking up, they all stare in wonder at Birdy, gun still in hand, and pointed at the television, an almost bored expression on her face.

She stares at the smoking remains for a minute, then sighs, looking around at the bewildered faces of her friends. "I hate television."

#######

They stay in the dress shop for the night, not that anyone feels much like sleeping.

Sitting around a fire made of what Birdy calls 'highly flammable material', which turns out to be an entire rack of dresses, Madge just watches the flames.

It reminds her of the fire that burned Twelve, hot and deadly, jumping, dancing tongues of light that seem so beautiful, but consume even the delicate, harmless dresses Birdy continues to feed it.

A nasty little voice in her head whispers that it should remind her of Katniss. She'd been an inferno, wild and deadly, destroying all the beautiful, wonderful things and people around her, unable to be controlled by even her own will.

She quickly tries to push the thought down. Katniss is dead, it isn't right to think ill of the dead.

The words must slip out, her mind has been fuzzy since seeing Squad 451's faces on the television earlier, because Birdy snorts.

"Being dead doesn't make you a saint, Madgie." Her eyes glow dangerously in the firelight. "Dying doesn't absolve sins. That's too simple. All the things you ruined don't magically get fixed when you die. All the people you screwed up don't get pieced back together. Death doesn't fix anything. And if you get yourself killed while people still need you, that's just selfish."

"Amen to that," Crispin grimaces, bracing his arm and sliding down to the floor.

"Hating the dead doesn't do the living any good either, Bird," Katy-Jo Lewes points out gently. "Hating them only harms your soul."

Birdy laughs. "No one is obligated to forgive anyone, and telling people they should is a load of bullshit. Some people don't deserve forgiveness."

"Do you?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, her normally smooth face scrunched in worry.

Snorting again, Birdy shakes her head. "No, and I don't deserve it. Sometimes it has to be earned, even if that takes a lifetime."

Madge frowns and starts to ask if helping free the country from the suffering its endured for the last seventy-five years isn't enough to earn at least a little forgiveness, but stops. Whatever price Birdy has placed on her soul is hers to set, and Madge decides it isn't her place to question it.

Sniffling, Madge falls over, pulling a sequined gown over her and resting her head against a wadded up coat made of some kind of exotic fur. She blinks, sending tears down her cheeks, blurring the glow of the fire.

Gale is dead. He didn't die for Katniss, he died to save his family from another round of Games, to save the country. He knew the price he might pay, and he'd decided it was worth it, and that makes her furious.

Jaw clenching, she closes her eyes.

He had no right to throw his life away. What about his family? They needed him. What about the people of Twelve that looked to him? He'd abandoned them.

Birdy's calling him selfish seems spot on in that harsh light of that realization.

He'd sacrificed himself, maybe for a good cause, but at what cost?

His brothers and sister need him. His mother needs him.

Madge needed him.

Rolling onto her back, Madge presses her fingers to her eyes. She's being selfish now.

"I just don't want him to be dead," she mumbles into her hands.

She'd move to another district. Change her name and be swallowed up into anonymity, give up Mr. Abernathy and Peeta and all of the Hawthornes, she'd bake the bread for Gale and Katniss' toasting if it would bring him back to life.

"I should've done more." She sits up, pushing grimy hair from her face. "I should've done more to convince him to stay in Thirteen. Maybe if I'd stayed in Thirteen I could've gone with 451 instead and he'd still be alive-"

"Madge!" Birdy cuts her babbling off.

She's darker in the firelight, her olive tones deeper than they have been, the last of the Capitol finally having drained from her skin and her eyes no longer with that wicked gleam.

"They'd've never let you go," she points out. "Mr. Haymitch'd never let you go."

"But-"

Her head shakes and she smiles sadly.

"Sweetie," Katy-Jo Lewes takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Some people are born in flames, and that's how they're gonna end, no matter what anyone does or doesn't do."

"People who burn as brightly as Gale Hawthorne and Katniss Everdeen," Birdy adds, eyes back on the fire, "they burn hot and wild and out. Twice as bright, half as long, isn't that what they always say?"

Crispin nods. "It is."

Madge swallows down her tears and nods too.

She was never meant to burn as brightly as Gale or Katniss, that isn't who she is, and imagining anything else is pointless.

Closing her eyes, she rolls, her back to the fire. She's done with fire for a while.

#######

They start toward the city center the next day, there's nowhere else to go and Birdy thinks, reasonably, that it would be better if they got closer to where Snow is.

"We need to make sure he's either killed or caught, and the more rebels that are there the better."

Madge feels hollow, wooden and listless. Crying, off and on, all night long, imagining Gale dying, the kids crying, Mr. Abernathy mourning his kids, it had all worn away any energy her snatches of fitful sleeping might've given her.

She's sluggish, cold, and her head is still throbbing dully from crying.

The others talk to her, throw little questions to her to try to keep her involved, but her heart isn't in it.

Her mind is on a wheel, circling through painful visions of Gale, on her back porch, selling her strawberries, drunk in her garden after the Quarter Quell announcement, asleep in her bed as she tried to keep him from being arrested for breaking curfew and public drunkenness, kissing her, his hands on her, in Thirteen.

Everything about him comes to her in vivid detail. The way his lips felt against hers, his hair, the smell of earth and wind and sweat, his mother's detergent, on him, even the prickle of his stubble…

His laugh seems to echo through her head and when she shakes it, trying to brush away more tears without anyone seeing, her mind drifts to Peeta.

They'd played hide and seek in her backyard when they'd been little, and his little giggle, when he'd found her under the big shrub by her sitting room window, dirt on her knees and smeared across her clothes.

"Mrs. Oberst is going to kill me," she'd started to cry, furiously trying to brush the dirt and debris from the hem of her dress.

"It isn't so bad," he'd tried to comfort her, helping her by taking the bottom of his shirt and trying to rub the dark from the pale bottom of her dress, only succeeding in making his own shirt filthy.

She'd been yelled at by Mrs. Oberst for 'ruining' her new dress, even though a week later it was as pristine as ever, but Peeta had stayed on the back steps and waited for her reprimand to finish before hugging her while she'd cried.

The next day at school he'd had a black eye that he'd laughed off as having lost the battle for the top bunk bed with Rhys, but Madge had her own thought on it.

People like Peeta, who were willing to take a hit for trying to help a friend, who gave the girl they loved a locket with another man's picture in it to make them want to live, who'd been tortured to the point that they don't know reality from nightmares, don't deserve to die like that, in the middle of a street, their death glorified as a triumph.

Then there's Katniss.

As much anger as Madge has harbored for her, jealousy and resentment, she hadn't deserved this either.

She's dead and she's still being manipulated by the Capitol and the rebels. Her image and the emotions she invokes are still being used to fight a battle she hadn't chosen. All she'd wanted was to save Prim, and eventually Peeta, and somehow that had all been twisted so badly.

Now Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, and all the Hawthornes are having to mourn their losses, all because of people like Coin and Snow and their games.

A little sob escapes her chest again, causing her to cover her mouth to try to stifle it, but it still comes out as a garbled, slushy mess.

Katy-Jo Lewes suddenly wraps an arm around her and smoothes out her hair.

"It's okay," she tells her as she tries to push all the painful thoughts from her head, but it only serves to make more tears fall.

"We can stop for a while," Birdy finally says, glancing around at the damaged buildings they'd been skirting along, sticking close to the walls to avoid any possible snipers or stray Peacekeepers.

Madge shakes her head and pushes Katy-Jo Lewes away. "No, I'm fi-"

Her protest is stopped by a scream.

Whether it's a man or a woman, Madge isn't sure, but they're in pain, probably dying.

It's so shrill and pained, ice seems to shoot up Madge's back, down her arms and legs and across her eyes.

"Jabberjays?" Crispin asks, wide dark eyes crinkling up at the edges as he glances around, certain the birds are near.

"I don't think so," Birdy says, stepping away from the building's shadow and tilting her head. Her eyes widen, suddenly cleared of the sympathy she'd had for Madge and replaced with realization. "Come on!"

She's a little faster than the rest of them, hurdling debris and skittering over broken glass, climbing over an abandoned car as she runs ahead.

"Be careful!" Crispin shouts, hi teeth gritting as his arm jostles painfully.

When they take a corner, they nearly run into Birdy's back.

She's stopped, frozen on the spot, tilting her ears for the sound of the screaming that's mercifully stopped.

"Maybe they've died," Madge whispers softly to Katy-Jo Lewes. It would be a blessing, for whoever it was. Whatever had made them scream like that was probably not worth living through.

"No," Birdy says, shaking her head, a few strands of dirty hair falling into her face.

Her eyes jump up the buildings, a little line forming between them as she tries to puzzle something out, then they drop a little and she sighs, running her hand over her face.

"Where?" She mumbles to herself, right before something causes the ground to shudder under them. Her eyes drop and widen.

As Madge is considering hiding, someone must've set off a pod and there's no telling what they might run into, Birdy takes off again.

"No more coffee for her," Katy-Jo Lewes grumbles, jogging behind the rest.

Finally, Birdy stops again, her head peaking around a corner.

She drops back, eyes wide with horror as she glances at the others.

"Mutts." She bites her lip. "Someone blew them up pretty good, but you know how mutts are."

Madge actually doesn't, but she can guess, and that guess is that they're extremely hardy. It was possible that no bomb was going to completely incapacitate them.

Pulling her long gun from over her shoulder, Birdy checks it for bullets.

"What are you doing?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks warily. "We ain't gotta go that way. Did you hit your head or something?"

Rolling her eyes, Birdy lets out a huff, blowing her increasingly greasy and straggly bangs from her eyes. "I'm gonna go check if the person they got is alive."

"They're not," Crispin tells her. "You've seen what Mutts can do, Birdy. Whoever that is, they're dead."

And the better for it, Madge thinks.

Shooting him a nasty glare, Birdy clicks her gun and steps around the corner, not waiting for more arguments.

Something horrible hisses, high and loud, growling and spitting until the gun discharges, once, twice, a dozen times, a quick pause for reloading being the only interruption before Birdy calls out the all clear.

"Come help me!" She shouts excitedly.

Still terrified that whatever horrible creatures had been screaming might still be alive, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes exchange a look before following Crispin around the corner.

They have to climb over the edge of the road, blown into a strange mix of ribbon rippled asphalt and heavy cracks, spiraling out like lace, down and over bloody carcasses of things unrecognizable other than shiny skin and a ghastly, putrid smell of burnt exotic flesh.

Before Madge can call out, there's a strange haze she can only see a few feet through, she spots Birdy.

She's on her knees, cradling something in her lap, her front smeared with crimson.

It takes a second, but Madge finally recognizes what she's got. A person.

Stumbling, Madge tries to jump over one of the mutts, tripping and smearing their foul blood on her pants before righting herself and getting to her feet and running.

"Are they alive?" She asks before she's even at Birdy's side.

At first she thinks she knows the answer. Birdy's face is down and even from the angle she's at, Madge is certain she's crying. Whoever it is, they're past the point of rescue.

Then she looks up.

There's blood smeared over her face, in her hair and dripping in her hair, and she is crying, but she's also laughing.

"He's alive," she lets out a long, relieved sigh, smoothing out his hair. "He's alive."

Katy-Jo Lewes and Crispin finally stumble up, out of breath and wheezing, squinting down at him. "Who is it?"

Madge frowns, her eyes focusing on him.

Bronze hair, smeared with glistening red blood, a face badly mauled, bloody and but still recognizably handsome.

"Finnick," she half gasps.

He groans and Katy-Jo Lewes drops, pulling her first aid kit from her bag. "I don't think we're quite prepared for this level of care."

"Oh, hell no," Birdy laughs again. She nods though. "He's gonna be okay though. He's gonna be okay."

#######

It takes several hours, until nightfall, bandaging and binding, searching for boards and carefully moving Finnick, first from the smoldering hole in the street and then up to another store, but they do it.

He doesn't talk, they suspect his throat is burned from whatever caused the explosion, but his presence tells them all they need to know.

Squad 451 is alive. Snow and Coin were both wrong, and judging by the apparent viciousness of the mutts that had been scattered around Finnick, Snow, at least, knew of the blunder.

"We have to get to them," Madge says, suddenly full of energy.

Gale is alive, Katniss and Peeta are alive, at least for the time being. They need to get to them and help them with whatever mission they're trying to carry out.

"First we need to get Finnick some help," Katy-Jo Lewes points out. "He's stable at the moment, but he isn't going to last long with what we've got."

"We need a car," Birdy tells her, as though it's that simple. She nods to herself, squinting out the dirty and cracked window of the shop, a shoe store this time, out at the twilight falling. "We need a car."

Without explanation, she gets up and heads for the door.

"Where the hell are you going, kid?" Crispin asks her.

With a grin, she stops. "To get a car."

#######

By Madge's estimation it's either very late at night or very early the next morning when Birdy reappears.

They'd worried she'd get herself blown up or eaten, but then Crispin shrugged and nodded off.

"Her games were in the dark, remember? She's probably spent most of the last few years reliving that. This is her element or she wouldn't be out there."

So they'd waited.

They don't see her at first, only hear the muffled growl of something mechanical and the screeching of rubber preceding the bright white of headlights careening around the corner.

The car, which is nothing like the rusty, ancient vehicles Madge had ridden in a couple of times living in Twelve, stops without a noise, purring rhythmically, in front of the storefront.

Stepping out, Birdy grins. "I got a car."

No one responds until Madge presses her fingers to her eyes.

"You said we couldn't take a car."

"I said we couldn't take any of those cars, they were out of gas. This one isn't, clearly."

"And you said the roads were impassable."

"Going forward," she tells them superiorly. "Going back is another story. We've got live updates of what's cleared and what isn't."

Stepping around the car, Madge squints at the back plate, lit with what looks to be white, twinkling lights.

Hvnsbe3

After a second of thought, Madge groans. "You stole Plutarch Heavensbee's car?"

"He's not using it," she points out with a shrug. "Besides, he's got thirty. He keeps some in different parts of the city so he can change rides if one bores him. Asshole."

Madge is inclined to agree, but keeps that to herself.

"What do you plan on doing with a Gamemaker's car?" Katy-Jo Lewes finally asks, eyeing the car warily.

Smiling, Birdy points toward the storefront. "Get Finnick out of here."

#######

No one argues with her plan, mostly because, for the most part, it's reasonable.

They have a car and Finnick needs quick transport to medical facilities.

"Crispin needs that arm fixed too," she adds. "Katy-Jo Lewes will take the compact and wiggle them both back to the front."

"But I don't know how to drive," Katy-Jo Lewes points out.

"Details," Birdy waves her off.

So without complaint, they gingerly load Finnick in the back, padding the small seat to keep him from getting jostled too much.

"It's a fast car, but it's got almost no backseat," Birdy complains. "And the trunk space is atrocious. Barely fit one body in there."

The work seems to stop.

"Why're you putting bodies in a car?" Katy-Jo Lewes asks, one side of her mouth twitched up in horror and worry.

Frowning, Birdy shrugs. "How else am I supposed to move them?"

Sharing a look, not certain if she's playing with them or serious, Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes decide it's for the best if they don't ask about it further, and Crispin seems to agree.

Nearly an hour later, just as the sun is peaking over and through the buildings, it's yellow white rays catching in the floating dust and making the cold morning air sparkle strangely, the packing is done and Birdy deposits the keys in Katy-Jo Lewes' hand.

"I still don't know how to drive," she reminds her, the keys limp in her hand.

"It's simple," Birdy tells her, the faux smile she'd used so often when Madge first met her fixed on her face. "Just push on the gas and steer, don't hit anyone or anything and you'll be fine."

"I'll help you," Crispin tells her, much to the increasingly pale Katy-Jo Lewes' relief.

"If you wanna keep living you will, Crisp."

Giving Birdy a pat on the back with his good arm, Crispin smiles. "Be brave, little one."

With that he drops into the passenger seat, leaving the girls.

"I'll see you two on the other side," Katy-Jo Lewes whispers as she hugs Madge and Birdy, pressing a little kiss to each of their cheeks.

"I'll still be waiting," Birdy tells her, a genuine smile back on her face.

Nodding, then grimacing, Katy-Jo Lewes slides in the driver seat and starts the car.

She guns it a few times, Madge hears some screaming and Crispin's low voice calmly giving instructions floats out the down window, and after thirty or so minutes, they finally make it down the block, turning and vanishing, hopefully to safer ground.

A sudden, cold realization hits Madge.

"You gave her our compact," she points out, dread filling her chest. "We won't be able to spot pods."

They'll be going forward blind.

Birdy nods. "I know."

"But-"

"The closer we are to the President, the fewer pods we're gonna find. We're going to be fine," she brushes it off. "It's going to be okay."

#######

Okay is a relative term, clearly.

They finally make it to the part of the city where all the ghosts have gone.

Hiding as they scurry, behind giant dumpsters, overflowing with the excess from the increased strain of refugees, Madge and Birdy watch the people traveling up and down the street, still dressed in wild, colorful clothes.

Deciding they need to blend in, Birdy pulls a small device from her pocket and shoves it in the lock at the back of a smaller building. It clicks open.

"And you've spent days knocking down doors, why exactly?"

Birdy shrugs. "Shits and giggles."

Madge wouldn't doubt it.

Quietly, they rifle through boxes of donated clothing, slated for repurposing according to Birdy.

"See? They aren't all bad," she points out. "They're very concerned about the environment."

"Why? They wouldn't know wildlife if it bit their arm off," Madge laughs.

Shrugging, Birdy snorts. "True, but they're still concerned."

"About trees and bugs and clean water?" Madge asks incredulously. "About animals but not people? The children they slaughter and let starve?"

"They are a strange lot," Birdy admits, tossing a dress at Madge. "Put this on."

Several times a man, the owner, who Birdy apparently knows, comes to the back and grabs piles of clothing, taking it to the front.

"He's a good man. I liked to shop here after my prep team…well, after everything." She grimaces. "I couldn't put new things on. It felt…disloyal."

Madge wonders if she'd feel any loyalty to her prep team if she had one. Familiarity, constant contact, would probably make fondness an inevitability. She might not understand it, not wholly, but she doesn't condemn it. It's an adaptation that kept Birdy alive, just like drinking had kept Mr. Abernathy going and selling his body had saved Annie for Finnick.

People do what they need to do to survive, and Madge decides it isn't her place to judge them for it.

Once they're dressed, Madge in a silken dress that clings to her uncomfortably and that Birdy tells her to cover with a long, heavy, coal black coat.

"Hide your gun in there," she points to a strange pocket on the inside.

"What's this here for?" Madge wrinkles her nose, opening the pocket and frowning, her gun will fit perfectly.

"A gun."

Looking up, Madge's eyebrows rise. "Are you serious or are you joking, 'cause I really can't tell."

Birdy looks up from lacing her new boots up. "Why would I joke about that?"

They sit there for a moment, staring, before Madge sighs. She doesn't even want an explanation anymore. She's in wonderland and nothing makes sense.

Once they're changed, Madge feeling a little foolish and Birdy looking more like the girl she'd been when Madge first met her, they sneak back out into the cold.

It's started snowing, little white spots drift down and pile along the sidewalk, melting underfoot and growing dark and unappealing as they do.

People are scarce, most having retreated into the relative warmth of the shelters.

Birdy convinces Madge that their best bet to find the others is to wait them out. They're headed to Snow, there's no question about that, and it's just a matter of finding them before they do anything they'll regret.

"Come on, they're all idiots. They can't stay down for long, and when they make their undoubtedly stupid move, we'll be ready."

"They aren't idiots," Madge snaps as they step up to one of the shelters.

"Compared to me they are," Birdy grumbles, stepping up to the man at the entrance handing out blankets and smiling. "Dreadful weather."

Her accent is spot on, Capitol to the letter, and Madge wonders how long she'd practiced to get it so flawless.

The man nods, smiles, not a tooth showing, and hands them both a blanket, soft, expensive material woven together, sure to keep them warm through the night.

They settle down in a corner, near a family all sporting flaming red hair, and wrap up for the night.

One of the little girls in the family, probably Vick's age, maybe a little younger, has her thick hair in waves and is pulling a doll from her bag.

"We have to take that out of your hair, Cecily," she tells it importantly as she pulls a ribbon from its hair.

For a half a second Madge stays transfixed by the little dark-haired doll's braid, Katniss' braid, right before the little girl combs it out.

"She looks just lovely, Aura," her mother tells her, smiling tiredly at the doll. "Much better now."

"Because Katniss wanted to kill us?" The girl, Aura, asks.

Madge frowns and pulls her blanket a little closer. Katniss, she wants to tell the girl, doesn't want to kill anyone, except maybe President Snow.

She stays silent though, pulling her legs to her chest and closing her eyes, willing morning to come.

#######

They eat breakfast with the evacuees. Dry bread and water, a few nonperishables, then wander out with the crowd, scouting their surroundings.

Nothing happens. All day they shuffle around, listening in on conversations and munching on crackers they'd been given and watching the televisions.

Mr. Latier has control of the airwaves, which in this part of the city is on full time with the generators, and is showing the rebels taking block after block, using the multitude of abandoned cars to set off the pods.

"They're gonna deactivate and reactivate them," Birdy points out darkly.

Only a few minutes later, just that happens, causing Birdy to give Madge a grim smile.

"See? Much more gripping television than our little handhelds."

It's mostly instructions about new evacuation zones, and how many evacuees citizens and store owners are expected to take in, apparently the shelters are at capacity, after that.

"Oh, this is Agrippina's work," Birdy hums happily when a staged welcome for the refugees is shown. "She's still terrible."

They play a game of chess with an old man and his grandson, both separated from the old man's son and daughter-in-law, his grandson's parents.

"You'll find them," Birdy assures him after an agonizingly long game.

"I hope so," the boy, Atticus, sighs.

Madge wishes she could comfort him, but her accent is a dead giveaway and Birdy has forbidden it. Instead, she pats his head and smiles.

"Are you an Avox?" He asks, suddenly curious.

Bright silver hair, shaved on one side and spiked on the other, has suddenly crawled into Madge's lap, trying to pull her mouth open.

"I've never met an Avox that wasn't working? Why aren't you working?"

Birdy gives the boy a dewy smile and pulls him from Madge's lap, depositing him back beside his grandfather.

"She's got a sore throat," she tells him flatly. Her eyebrows, hidden under an enormous, sparkly stocking cap, rise, taking her hat with them. "I wouldn't get in her face if I were you."

The man and his grandson scurry off after that, clearly wary of catching whatever illness is plaguing their silent friend.

By the end of the day, they've learned nothing but that children that have been separated from their families are being camped on the front lawn of the Presidential Mansion.

"Human shields," Madge murmurs.

"Dear President Snow doesn't realize what kind of monsters he's battling, does he?" Birdy laughs mirthlessly.

A flare of panic hits Madge's stomach when it dawns on her what she's talking about.

The bomb, those awful plans she'd tossed around back when she'd come to Thirteen, would be perfect in the situation Snow has created.

"Then again," Birdy shrugs, settling down against her corner for the night, "maybe he knows exactly what kind of monsters we are."

Madge shifts, looking at her and already knowing the answer. "He'd sacrifice Capitol children?"

Pulling her cap down, Birdy smiles sadly. "He would. He will."

A knot forms in Madge's stomach.

So would Coin. So will Coin, if she needs to. She's sacrificing soldiers for the sake of film footage.

What were a few children and medics when there's victory on the line?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 deserve every ounce of praise you can heap upon them for putting up with me. Thank you guys so much. You don't understand how much you've both helped me.

They decide to head toward the Mansion the next day. That's where the others will be going after all.

Plodding along, their pitiful breakfast gone from their stomachs, they stay silent, listening to the chatter of the displaced persons around them.

Most of it's complaining, irritation at having been thrown from their warm beds and forced to stay in miserable accommodations with much less food than they're used to.

"My heart bleeds," Birdy mutters, though Madge notices her hand off a banana she'd squirreled away to a little girl a little after that.

Things are going predictably, almost boringly, when the screaming starts.

"So help me, if someone is yelling about getting their shoes wet again, I'm pulling out my gun and shooting," Birdy growls.

Seconds later, as if to let her know that things were more dire than wet socks, the ground at their feet shatter, bits of road and metal flying up and hitting them in the face.

"Someone is shooting!" A man yells, sending the crowd into a panic.

The television reports had apparently been delayed, the rebels, which had been, by both girls' estimation, still four blocks away, have broken through.

Shots fire from both sides, Peacekeepers at the rebels and back again, but the rebels are much less accurate.

Snapping something about having warned them about their pitiful training, Birdy throws her coat off and pulls her long gun out, pointing it at the rooftop where rebel snipers are apparently hiding.

"Those are our people!" Madge shouts, no longer caring about blending in, no one is paying her any attention anyways, just the madwoman with a gun at her side.

"My enemy is anyone shooting at me," Birdy tells her evenly, firing off a shot.

A man falls from the roof a moment later.

Screams and the stampeding of feet overwhelm Madge and she finds herself being slapped.

"Come on!" Birdy shouts, firing at Peacekeepers and rebels, whoever irritates her the most, as she starts telling people to get off the street.

"Get inside!" She yells, her high voice barely breaking through the shrill screams and pounding of feet.

"Inside!" Madge tries to help, her throat burning in the cold. "Get inside! Away from the fighting!"

No one hears them, though.

When a woman goes down, shot by a sniper on the roof just above their heads, Birdy hits Madge with the back of her hand and jerks her head. "That asshole is getting it, and I'm taking his spot."

Running toward the building, she flings open the door and runs inside, past the bewildered and terrified occupants.

"Sorry, sorry," Madge tells them as she follows Birdy taking the steps two at a time to the hall on the second floor.

"Outta the way!" Birdy snaps at a huge man, blocking her way.

He narrows his silver eyes and bares pointed teeth. "Why should I?"

Lifting the gun, Birdy gives him a flat look. "'Cause I'm the one with the gun."

That, apparently, turns out to be just the thing to get not only the giant, but also his entire, silver-haired family from blocking the way. They press against the wall, eyeing Madge and Birdy as they run by.

"I'm sorry," Madge mutters at them right before jumping up the stairs that are marked with a lime green sign, indicating they lead to the roof.

Quietly, they open the door and creep out onto the snow dusted roof.

The gunner is crouched, unsuspecting at the edge of the roof, firing off shots ever few seconds.

Black dress fluttering, like a shadow ready to consume the poor man, Birdy quietly pads over to him and pull her smaller gun from the folds of her dress.

"Put it away and put your hands up," she tells him calmly.

Madge lets out a sigh of relief when the man, who's more of a gangly boy really, starts to put his gun down. Her heart stops, though, when he rolls and pulls a gun out, pointing it at Birdy.

"I'm not backing down lady," he tells her, his voice cracking. He's too young to be doing this.

She smiles, brilliant white teeth shining wickedly as she does. "Ever killed someone up close, dumplin'?"

He frowns, his face scrunching up in confusion. "What?"

"I'm from Ten. I grew up killing up close." She tightens her grip on her gun. "Ain't pretty. Nice and bloody. You ready to get brains and guts on you?"

His jaw clenches. "If I have to."

"Suite yourself," she tells him cheerfully.

Before Madge can blink the gun has gone off and the boy has rolled over, clutching his shoulder, while Birdy stands, flecks of blood and bone splattered on her face and dress.

"I'm dying!" He sobs.

"You'll live unless you keep bellyaching," Birdy warns him. "You keep that up and I'll give you a reason to act like a baby."

Ignoring the boy, she picks up his gun and takes up his spot.

"This is a great vantage point," she tells Madge, as though she hadn't just maimed a person. "I can see all the way up the street and down from here."

She's right, they can even see the City Circle and the children pinned around the Presidential Mansion from where they're perched. Madge, ignoring the wails of the injured man, takes up the spot next to her.

Holding the gun up, she hits her mark, taking down several Peacekeepers, and when they start to hit civilians, other rebels.

"They're gonna be mad when they figure out that was you," Madge tells her, wondering if they'll have such a thing as a tribunal and if she'll be required to testify against her friend.

"Like I care," she mutters, continuing to fire off shots, hitting what Madge assumes is a rebel on the rooftop across from them, sending them toppling over the edge and to the ground.

Suddenly, something lurches, the building shudders and shakes, and Madge grabs the ledge as she loses balance.

Peering over at the street, she sees a crack has opened below them, right down the center of the street, into a pit of nothingness. The smell of rotting corpses fills the air and people frantically try to escape the crumbling ground and hungry hole below them.

Four Peacekeepers run at top speed, knocking evacuees out of the way and diving for the small entry way of Madge and Birdy's building. She watches them duck into their building, and Birdy curses.

"Let's hope none of them has brains enough to come up here to hop the buildings and get back to solid ground."

Transfixed by the growing gap, Madge almost misses the two figures, trying desperately to escape the pit.

They don't stand out, not really. The street is a jumble of panic and confusion, but Madge's eye catch on the dark hair and olive skin before she's even aware she's doing so. She's drawn to it no matter the situation it seems.

"Gale." It has to be him. She's spent years memorizing his figure, the lope of his steps and the easy way his clothes hang from him. It would be harder for her not to see him.

She watches him run, long legs carrying him quickly across the mess of discarded items and rapidly deteriorating road, willing him to make it to safety.

As if guided by an invisible hand, he lunges at an entryway. Her entryway.

Tears of relieve start trickling down her face, dripping off her jaw and landing messily on the narrow ledge. She probably looks like a madwoman, but she doesn't care.

Once she's certain Gale is safe, that he's securely latched to door and isn't going to fall to his death she starts to look for Katniss.

Eyes darting, searching the flailing hands and faces, she finds her. Just as she'd expected.

She's clinging to the edge of the street, desperate to escape the hole trying to draw her in.

It seems to take a lifetime, but is probably only a few painfully long minutes, before Katniss finally pulls herself up, panting and crying.

"It's Katniss!" Madge shouts, pointing to the street.

"Good for her," Birdy mumbles, tilting her gun up. There's no point shooting at the moment, all her targets have either been swallowed up by the street of escaped into the buildings.

Madge sinks down beside the ledge, and covers her face with her hands before tears of relief start to slip out.

Gale and Katniss are alive.

When they'd found Finnick, it had let them know they were alive, but seeing them, actually setting eyes on them, is a strange sort of confirmation. She didn't realize it until now just how much she needed to see them, to know for herself that it wasn't just wishful thinking and a broken heart that had her chasing a ghost.

Choking back a sob, she scrubs her hands over her face, smearing the tears down her cheeks before taking a deep breath and rolling back to her knees and pulling herself back up to the ledge.

Across from them, people are clinging desperately to anything they can. Windowsills and the knobs of door, decorative lattice and mail boxes, are all being used to keep pitiful looking people from falling to what is most certainly death.

Frantically, Madge tries to lean over the edge, just to assure herself Gale is still there and hasn't gotten in yet. She'll go down and meet him, let him know that Katniss is alive and well, he's got to be worried sick.

Before she does though, shots fire off below her, to her horror, towards Gale. Looking up to find the source and tell Birdy to put a stop to them, she finds it coming from a wild looking Katniss' gun.

"Someone's got Gale." That's the only reason Katniss would be firing at him.

Someone has him and they're going to hurt him.

Wildly, she leans over the edge.

Her heart stops as she sees white gloved hands clamping down on Gale, pulling him through the doorway she had burst through only minutes before.

Time seems to stop as Gale's hands and feet fight back, the only parts of him she can see, struggle against his captors for a few long seconds before they vanish into the building.

Scrambling to her feet, Madge starts back for the stairs. She just got him back, she can't lose him now.

"Where are you going?" Birdy shouts.

"To save Gale!" Madge yells back, racing for the door.

"Magdalene!"

Stopping dead in her tracks, Madge turns, her heart pounding achingly in her chest.

Birdy has her gun down, eyes wide and settled on Madge.

"Don't go after him, Madgie," she tells her, voice weak. "Please don't go after him. He isn't worth it."

Madge feels her eyes start to water again and furiously swats them away.

She has to. She loves him, and even if he doesn't love her the way she wants to be loved, he loves her in his own way, and that's enough. She can't let him be killed because of petty jealousy and confused emotions.

Gale isn't the bad guy, and neither is she. They're just stupid people stuck in a terrible situation, and she can't abandon him just because he's broken her heart.

Shaking her head, Madge takes a shuddering breath before turning, leaving Birdy waiting for an answer that isn't coming.

#######

Madge takes the steps down from the roof three at a time before landing with a clatter at the bottom.

In a flurry, she reaches into the folds of her dress and digs out her gun.

Hands shaking, she checks the cartridge. Full. She hasn't fired a shot since her training in Ten.

Swallowing down bile, she pushes it back in.

She doesn't know if she can actually use it against anyone, even Peacekeepers, but they don't know that. All they're going to know is that she's a mad rebel. For all they know, she's killed hundreds.

Closing her eyes, she steadies her hand.

Gale needs her. Vick and Rory and Posy need her, they've already lost him once, she can't let them lose him again. His mother needs him. Madge owes it to them, for keeping her sane, for giving a damn about her and protecting her in the aftermath of the bombing. She has to get Gale home for them.

Quietly, she runs down the hall, her feet barely making a noise as she creeps down it to the stairs.

Wincing when she hears the sickening slap of skin on skin, she peaks down the stairway.

One of the Peacekeepers has Gale, an arm around his neck, choking him, as another man, a Peacekeeper closer to Madge's age than she's comfortable thinking about, pulls back and swings at him, landing a sloppy punch to Gale's nose, bloodying it.

"Not gonna talk?" He asks, though it's apparent he doesn't care if Gale says anything or not. "Guess we'll have to mess up that pretty face of yours then."

He pulls back again, preparing for another punch to Gale's already bruising and swollen face.

Before he can swing though, Madge steps down, into the faint light barely illuminating the entry hall.

"Let him go."

Her voice is surprisingly steady and her hand, to her great relief, doesn't shake as she levels the gun at the man threatening Gale.

They're too shocked to speak, just stare at her mutely for several seconds before the Peacekeepers start to snicker loudly.

"Or what? You'll shoot us?"

Another Peacekeeper, Madge suddenly, horribly, remembers that there'd been two more, steps into the entry from the hall beside the stairs, his eyes glinting as he eyes Madge's gun.

He swats his friend, another man, a boy, Madge's age, and they share a little chuckle, clearly thinking she doesn't have the nerve.

And really, she doesn't.

"Yes," she lies. Swallowing down fear, she flexes her finger on the trigger. "Let him go."

"Ma-" Gale tries to say something, his eyes bloodshot and one swollen shut, but the Peacekeeper holding him tightens his arm around his neck, cutting his air more.

Her attention is divided, stupidly, focused more on both Gale's increasing dire situation than the men to her right, and it's enough to give them the upper hand.

Before she can even react, the older Peacekeeper grabs the gun, yanking from her grip while his friend grabs her and pulls her bodily from the steps.

He crushes her against him, into his uniform which smells of smoke, probably from bombings and firefights, and laughs, his breath stale, like the 'squeeze to heat' burritos Katy-Jo Lewes has grown so fond of.

Gale struggles harder, rearing back and ramming the back of his head into the nose of the Peacekeeper holding him, causing it to spurt with blood. His grip doesn't loosen though. It only serves to earn him another punch, one that lands with a sickening crunch.

"Stop! Please!"

Madge isn't sure why she's pleading. They won't listen. She's only adding to their excitement about whatever they decide to do with her.

"He a friend of yours?" The young Peacekeeper asks her, smiling coldly.

When Madge doesn't answer, the man crushing her gives her a shake. "Answer him."

She won't, she refuses to be bullied. Her entire life she's dealt with men like this, people who think because she's small, fragile looking, that they can make her do anything they want, and if she's going to die, it won't be appeasing them.

"You're too pretty to be so sullen," the final Peacekeeper says, leering as he leans in, reaching out and running a gloved finger over her cheek before tipping her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "I bet we can get you to make some kind of noise."

His friends laugh.

Gale makes another move, jerking violently, almost throwing the man holding him off. He's too weak from his beating though, and he's quickly subdued.

He makes a gurgling noise that Madge thinks is her name, right before the Peacekeeper hits him again.

The distraction is just enough for Madge to take advantage of.

"Just because you're small, doesn't mean you're weak," her father had told her, during one of her many boxing lessens in the backroom of her house. "Being bigger doesn't mean winning anymore than being small means losing."

Mind racing, she remembers her father teaching her to flip him over her shoulder 'just in case'. She'd always hoped never to have to test out his teachings, a futile hope, clearly.

While the Peacekeepers are laughing at Gale, Madge puts her father's teachings to the test.

To her relief and amazement, it works.

The Peacekeeper sails over the top of her, his grip breaking around her waist. He lands on his head, a gruesome snap filing the space their laughter had formerly occupied.

Before they can gather their bearings, Madge turns to the Peacekeeper to her right and pulls back.

Her father would be proud. The punch is clean, as perfect as any he'd taught her, making solid contact with his jaw and causing his head to jerk back rapidly as his teeth crack loudly in his mouth.

"You bitch!" The Peacekeeper that had punched Gale, snarls. "I'm gonna make you scream."

He lunges at her, wrapping a thin hand around her wrist before she can respond and jerking her forward.

She braces herself for his hands on her body, the feeling of his breath on her skin, and prepares herself to fight back, she won't go down like this.

It never comes though.

Instead of hands and hot breath, she gets a splatter of something warm and wet on her face and the sound of gunfire ringing in her ears.

Unable to move, Madge stares at his body, slumped, dead at her feet, the top of his head a gory mess, blood forming a growing pool around him.

Turning back to the stairs, Birdy is just above where Madge had stopped, gun raised and pointing towards Gale.

"Let him go," she tells the man evenly.

Despite the fact that he's now outnumbered, by two people clearly quite a bit crazier than him, he keeps his arm tight around Gale's throat.

"No," he spits out, his voice not as steady as he would like it to be. "I-I have something you want. Put the gun down or I-I'll squeeze and your boyfriend here is dead."

His arm flexes, cutting Gale's air, in demonstration.

"You clearly misjudge how little I care if I get that idiot back with a fully functioning brain," she tells him as she tightens her finger on the trigger.

Eyes widening and taking a step back, the man swallows thickly.

"If you want to shoot me, you'll have to go through him."

Grinning, Birdy shrugs. "Okay."

Madge tries to yell 'Birdy, no', but she's already pulled the trigger.

Both Gale and the Peacekeeper go down, crumble to the ground in a heap.

Ears still ringing, Madge runs to Gale, not even caring if the Peacekeeper is still able to grab her.

She pushes the white clad man off Gale's back, heaves his sobbing, quivering body away and rolls Gale over.

"Gale!"

His shoulder is a bloody mess, and Madge frantically presses her palm to it to stem the flow.

"Gale, talk to me!"

She's shouting, both out of fear and because her ears are numb with a strange buzzing, and she feels tears start to drip off the edge of her face, splattering on Gale's blood soaked shirt.

"Gale, please!" She sputters, cupping his face with her free hand and trying to will him back to life.

Then she hears it.

It's almost a growl, she more feels it than actually hears it. Her name.

Gale's hand, caked in his own blood, reaches up and brushes some of the tangles from Madge's face. His lips move again. "Madge?"

She still can't fully hear him, his voice is distant and muffled, but he's talking. He's saying her name.

"Gale!"

Sobbing, Madge just stares at him through soggy lashes, trying to swallow down thick spit accumulating in her throat and coughing with each attempt.

He was dead, and now he isn't, and if that isn't a miracle, she doesn't know what one is.

A weak smile forms on his busted lips and he mouths her name again. "Madge."

It's too much, she's had too much happen in too close a time, and she can't stop herself when her body collapses, her face pressing into Gale's chest, still wet with blood.

Her ear finally stops ringing, leaving just a dull hum, and she turns her head, pressing her ear to his chest and finding his heartbeat.

It's strong, and she closes her eyes. He's alive, bloody and shot and absolutely filthy, but he's alive, and if the powers that be want every offer she made to them, she'll happily comply with each and every one of them. There's no price too high.

Sticky fingers comb through her hair, pull her back as he squints at her through swollen eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

Tears are coming too hard and too fast, and she can't answer, only blubber unintelligibly.

"We came for the party."

Sitting up, Madge turns, batting tears from her eyes.

Birdy, who Madge had forgotten about in her relief, is still at the stairs, leaning on the rail and picking at her nails, unbothered by the unconscious and dead bodies littering the landing.

She looks up and smiles coolly. "We were clearly misinformed about the exclusivity of this event if they're letting backward assclowns like you in."

Gale grunts and sits up, wincing and grasping his arm.

"You," he growls. "You shot me."

Birdy grins. "You're welcome."

He starts to get up, and Madge stands trying to help him ease up, wrapping an arm tentatively around his waist and letting him lean on her. The warmth of his body, the feeling of his ragged breath, pained and irregular, calms her, reminds her he's alive.

Birdy snorts. "You know I shot him in the arm, right?"

Gale makes a harsh noise. "I just got beat up."

"I know, I'm thrilled."

Madge shoots her a sharp look and she shrugs, as if to say 'well, don't expect two miracles'.

"We need to get to Snow," Gale says, more to Madge than Birdy. "That's where Katniss is going."

That familiar ping of jealousy hits Madge in the chest, and she curses herself. This isn't the time. Katniss needs them. She's fragile and alone, they need to help her. They all need to help her.

"Maybe the street behind us is still intact," Madge offers. She's going to be a good friend for once. This is about more than who loves who, this is the fate of everyone they know and love, and Madge isn't going to let them down. Her father wouldn't, she won't. "They wouldn't make these buildings safe havens if they're just trapping everyone in them."

"They would," Birdy tells her. "But I doubt they did. There's probably something just as nasty waiting for us there though."

Gale opens his mouth to say something, maybe offer up another option, but he's cut off.

Something outside roars, people scream, pained, terrified, then in a wave the building shudders again, sending the few remaining pieces of art still clinging to the walls to the ground, shattering all around them.

No one says anything, they just look between each other, wide eyed and confused.

Finally, Birdy's dark eyes flick up the stairs.

Something tells Madge she shouldn't go up, whatever caused the rumble isn't anything she wants to know about, but she and Gale begin walking, slowly, following Birdy silently.

They step out onto the roof silently.

The cold has been suddenly, strangely, replaced by a moist kind of heat.

All the snow, the dusting and the small clumps that had been scattered around the edges are gone, replaced by puddles of evaporating water. The sky, which had been cloudy and cool, is black, and when Madge lifts her nose, a sickening burning smell wafts by.

There's more screaming, but it isn't fearful, this time, but agonizing.

"What the hell…"

Birdy runs to the edge of the building, suddenly at full speed again, stomping through one of the puddles and sending ash filled water out in all directions.

The boy she'd shot is gripping the edge, his eyes wide with fear and his skin deathly pale.

"They dropped parachutes," he tells her, as though she hadn't shot him less than an hour earlier. "They dropped parachutes and they just-they just exploded."

Birdy doesn't say anything, just stares, her eyes trained on where the children had been penned around the mansion, her expression slowly slipping into horrible realization.

Fires burn and crackle around the mansion, where the children should be. Bodies flame and children, just children, scream, sending chills through Madge's core and up her spine.

Gale steps toward the edge, his gray eyes glowing in the light from the burning Capitol, wide and frightened, horrified.

Turning, Madge tries to say something to comfort him, tell him she's sure Katniss hadn't had time to get to the gates, that she's probably safe. She's Katniss. She's a survivor. She's safe and alive.

Her comforts die in her throat though, when the explosions start up again.

White hot heat rolls over them, blinding light fills the sky, turning the black to a strange purple gray as it does, and the screams vanish, swallowed up by the roar of the flames as they reach up, licking the smoke filled sky and turning it an eerie red.

As horrible as it is, Madge can't tear her eyes from it.

People, mostly children, are dying and all she can do is stand weakly by, watching and wondering which side had decided to pull the trigger.

Which side crossed that line, and she has a sickening feeling she knows which one it was.

Beside her, she feels Gale collapse.

She drops down beside him, certain the heat and the flames have been too much and that he's probably lost too much blood.

She starts to reach for her bag, there's water there, but makes a frustrated noise when she remembers she'd shed it with her rebel uniform.

"Gale?" She tries to get his attention, tell him they need to get downstairs and get him some water, check his wounds to make sure he isn't bleeding to death. There's nothing to be done for the dying surrounding the mansion, not yet anyway. He's her priority.

He doesn't respond though, just runs his hand over his face, smearing blood and sweat across his cheeks and into his already filthy hair.

"Gale?" She tries again, gently taking his hand and squeezing it. "Gale, look at me. Are you okay?"

Her mind instantly starts trying to remember anything she'd learned in basic wound care about blood loss and consciousness. That has to be it. He'd moved too much and now he was low on blood. Hopefully she can convince Birdy to help her get him off the roof.

Finally, slowly, his eyes pull from the fires, red rimmed and wet looking.

"Madge, what have I done?"


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429, thanks so much for the beta.

Madge doesn't remember much of the next few days. It's all a sea of blood and screams drowning her, slowly trying to crush the air from her lungs.

Medics pull her from Gale, who they almost immediately recognize as someone to be expedited to the front, despite the fact that there were patients triaged ahead of him in much more critical shape.

"I'm not leaving him!" She'd shouted, pulling out her gun and stepping between the medics and a frighteningly quiet Gale. They didn't know she wouldn't use it.

The woman, dressed in one of District Thirteen's drab medical uniforms, had raised her hands.

"He needs surgery on his shoulder. We need to get any bullet fragments out. You don't want him to get an infection, do you?"

It had taken a tense few seconds, people moaning and screaming around them, Madge's eyes narrowed on the woman, before she'd hesitantly lowered her gun. Swallowing down the sob threatening to topple out, she'd nodded and forced her voice to stay steady. "Okay."

Gale, who hadn't said a word since the roof, before Madge and Birdy had lead him and the young sniper over the rooftops to avoid the pod behind the building, which the explosion and heat from the front lawn of the Presidential Mansion had set off, leaving a strange soupy swamp where the road should be, had simply stepped around Madge. His eyes still emptily staring around him.

It had unnerved Madge, reminding her a little too much of her mother.

"Gale," she'd stopped him, grabbing his hand.

His gaze didn't rise or focus, even as Madge gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

"I'll be there when you get out, okay?" She'd glared past him at the woman, warning her that she was going to get Madge as soon as they finished with Gale. He didn't need to be alone.

The woman simply nodded.

"Madge," Gale had said her name, softly, so low she almost missed it. He'd finally looked up at her, his eyes no longer wild and stormy, a reflection of who he was at his core, but hollow. He'd lost his storm, and the frozen calm that had replaced it, worried her more than any bomb or gun.

"Just let me go."

He'd untwined her fingers from his and turned his face from her.

"Gale…"

Before she could tell him he was scaring her, the men had carted him away, to a part of the makeshift medical center that reserved for procedures.

Madge had stood at the entrance for hours, until the day faded into night, then melted into a gray morning.

The woman medic never came, and when Madge inquired, for what she was told was the 'forty-second time', they only told her Gale was stable and wasn't having visitors.

"I'm not a visitor," she'd tried to explain. "I'm his friend. We're from the same District. Please, he probably just doesn't think I'm still waiting."

Maybe he'd thought she'd gone to sleep.

"Just tell him Madge is still up. I'm still waiting."

A big man, bald with crooked teeth, had finally smiled gently at her.

"I told him, miss. He said he don't want no one, miss."

She'd stood there, staring at them for a few minutes, trying to comprehend his words.

Gale didn't want anyone. Not even her. Maybe especially not her.

It had taken her last reserves of energy to keep from dissolving into a puddle of tears and snot right in front of them. Exhaustion and rejection finally winning out over everything else, she'd almost stumbled out of the medical tent and crumpled to the ground by the entryway.

How long she stayed there, she still isn't sure, but when she finally looked up, her eyes swollen and her chest hurting, it was only because a little boy tapped her shoulder.

He was maybe seven, periwinkle hair and eyes, giving her a sympathetic little smile.

"Are you hurt too?" He'd asked, eyes, unnaturally wide, tracing along her face.

"No." Madge tried to wipe her face and force a smile.

He nodded. "Is someone else hurt?"

Unable to force out a yes, Madge nodded.

Sinking down beside her, he sighed. "My sister got burned," he tells her softly. "She got burned so I wouldn't."

Tears start to well in his unnatural eyes and he blinks them out. "I don't want her to die."

Uncertainly, Madge reaches over and wraps an arm around him.

Without warning, he leans into her side and she slowly feels the now frayed and filthy material of her dress seep through with tears.

#######

They don't move, maybe for hours, maybe for days, Madge isn't sure, until morning sunlight burns through her eyelids and someone shoves something wet into her face.

"You smell," Birdy tells her, shaking a soggy looking rag and pushing it in Madge's face. "I thought you were above the poor hygiene of your district."

Madge scowls at her.

Twisting, Birdy crosses her legs and drops down before she starts digging in her old bag. She's retrieved it somehow. Madge finds herself not caring how.

She's still in her black dress, there's more blood on it now, splattered on every inch of it, and Madge vaguely remembers her walking off, into the ocean of blood and cries, and adding the sound of single shots to the sickening song.

A few seconds later, she tosses several little baggies of what looks to be dried fruit and berries into Madge's lap, along with a bottle of water.

"Eat. Mr. Haymitch'll kill me if you survived everything else just to die of something silly like dehydration."

Stretching, Madge looks over, making a squeak of surprise when she finds her comrade in waiting gone.

"Did you see a little boy?" Madge asks, craning her neck to look for him over Birdy's head.

Birdy nods. "He left.'

Almost afraid to ask, Madge lowers her eyes. "Did he say-is his sister okay? She was burned."

For a moment Birdy just stares at her, studying her, before nodding. "She's okay."

There's something indefinite about her voice, measured and considered, and Madge nods.

"A good okay, or a bad okay?"

"She isn't hurting-"

"Phoebe!"

Birdy's expression doesn't change, stays even, closed and unreadable, before her mouth turns up in a weak smile.

"Do you really want me to tell you?"

Madge waits a moment. She doesn't want her to, and she doesn't need her to. Not wanting to answer, not wanting to be the one to give the bad news, even about a stranger, tells Madge all she needs to know.

She shakes her head.

"He'll be okay," Birdy tells her, and Madge nods.

Birdy would probably know better than most what a soul can endure.

Forcing the boy from her mind, Madge opens one of the clear bags and picks out a bit of something yellow to eat. She munches on it soundly and sips the water, letting it replace all the tears and sweat she's lost over the countless days.

"It doesn't have anything to do with you, you know?"

Looking up from her search for more yellow fruit, Madge frowns, sniffling.

"Gale, you know, not wanting to see anyone."

Without a response, Madge just goes back to her fruit.

She knows it probably has nothing to do with her. A nasty voice in the back of her head tells her that she's given herself too much credit, thinking Gale would want to see her of all people. Katniss has probably already been allowed in, given special privilege to override Gale's wishes. Maybe he's already been seen by his family. For all Madge knows, he's back in Thirteen.

"It was his bomb."

Madge's hand freezes halfway to her mouth, a small purple fruit in her fingers.

Her eyes close and she sighs, letting her head fall back against the makeshift building.

Parachutes had fallen, exploded, and when aide had come, exploded again, just like in the plans Birdy had tossed at her feet what felt like a lifetime ago.

Gale's bomb. Gale's plan. All Gale's.

Tears start to build up behind her eyes, stinging her lids until she opens them, sending them cascading down her cheeks.

"There's a big difference between planning out to kill, and actually seeing your plan in action," Birdy says softly. "It's murder, no matter what fancy name you dress it up in, no matter who sanctions it."

Nodding, Madge wipes her face, smearing tears on her cheeks.

Gale has spent his whole life fighting the Capitol, quietly rebelling in his own way with his hunting and trading, but that was a fight to live, a fight to keep his family alive. This was an attack, a strike against children, people like the periwinkle boy and his sister who had no say in the war, in the Games, in anything.

"There's fighting dirty, and then there's becoming what you fight, and there's a fine line between the two." Birdy glances at the door, then back at Madge, her nose wrinkled up. "And I think Gale might've found it."

Swallowing down bile, Madge nods again.

Gale had known, the moment he saw the second set of bombs go off, he knew.

He'd known he was a killer. Not a soldier, not a freedom fighter. A killer, and he'd locked himself away.

Feeling suddenly foolish for thinking Gale was having some kind of convalescence party with his family and Katniss, Madge bites her lip. Gale is probably torturing himself. She needs to get to him.

She tries to stand up, but her legs are stiff from inactivity and she almost topples over before Birdy catches her.

"Where are you going?"

"He needs me."

"Madge," Birdy shakes her head, "sometimes we need to clean the blood off our own hands."

Madge tries to get up again. "I can help him."

She understands now. He needs her. He doesn't need to be by himself.

"Listen," Birdy says, almost hesitantly, as she watches Madge push herself up, "Finnick, he told me once that people-that just because people don't handle things the best way, the way we'd like them to, doesn't mean it isn't what they think is best. That we keep people we love safe in the only ways we know how."

Freezing, Madge looks at her, processing what she's said.

"You think-you think Gale loves me?"

Shrugging, Birdy rolls her eyes. "You're worse than that idiot friend of yours. If you'd have gotten to watch Peeta Mellark making pie-eyes at her in some of your school function videos I had to watch back during the 74th, you'd want to reach through and just smack the oblivious out of her head."

Unable to keep her smile from widening, Madge sinks back down and picks up her little baggie again, half its contents spilled on the ground in front of her.

Gale loves her. He's protecting her, from himself, as ridiculous as that is. He protects the ones he loves, and she's among them.

Reaching out, Birdy takes the bag and fixes Madge in a somber look.

"There's something else."

#######

Madge doesn't know how she's able to cry more, but she does.

Prim is gone.

Why she'd been among the medics sent into the Capitol, no one could say, but Madge already knew.

"Coin knew Katniss was alive," she reasons aloud. "She sent Prim in to die. She ordered that bomb. She killed Prim to break Katniss, to keep her from being a force when the new government is set up."

Birdy nods, tugging at her greasy hair.

"It was a riskless gamble," Birdy adds. "Either she's killed Prim to give our little Mockingjay the final push over the edge she's been teetering on, assuming she's alive, or she's killed her to keep her from being pushed into her sister's spot. This country ate that kid up. She was everyone's little sister, it wouldn't have taken much to make her the next face of this disaster, but unlike Katniss, Primrose Everdeen looked out for everyone. I doubt she'd have been quite as tunnel versioned as her sister."

Much as Madge thinks it's unfair to say Katniss was tunnel versioned, she'd been forced into a terrible position and had too many unrealistic expectations forced on her, she's still a child in so many ways, she keeps her mouth shut.

Birdy and seventy-three others had been put in the same position, had to make terrible decisions too. They didn't have the pressure of a rebellion on them, but Madge doubts they'd care much for that argument.

It isn't a competition, suffering is suffering, and telling them that theirs doesn't compare to Katniss' is unfair.

Taking a long drink of another bottle of water, maybe her sixth or seventh, Madge takes a long breath.

"I can't see her?"

Birdy shakes her head. "I don't even know where they're keeping her. Not that I'd be able to get you in to see her if I did. Again, not popular."

Despite her claims against it, Birdy does know several people that have graciously given her updates on both Gale and Katniss.

Katniss is recovering, but she can't speak, and no one seems to know why.

"Her sister is dead," Madge cuts in. "She's traumatized."

She doesn't need a doctorate to know that. Coin got what she wanted. Katniss is all but useless to herself and everyone else.

"I know that," Birdy says with a shrug. "But it seems emotional turmoil is about as foreign to Thirteen and their experts as it is to the Capitol."

Gale is another story.

"Patched him up and sent him to Two," Birdy tells her, adding softly, "at his request."

He's been tasked with tracking down Peacekeepers that are still running, causing trouble and destroying rebel installments and creating panic throughout the district.

"Why Two?" Madge wonders aloud. Two is about as close to the Capitol as anyone could get without actually being in the Capitol. They were the lapdogs of the government, the most vicious Victors. Gale's choice makes no sense.

"He owes them."

Madge stares at her for a minute, confused while her mind catches up.

The mountain they'd destroyed, all those people they'd killed-

"That was Gale too?"

Birdy doesn't answer, just sips on her water a little more.

Gale had suggested destroying the mountain. Gale had designed the bomb. Gale had killed hundreds, maybe not with his own hands, but with his dark thoughts and anger.

Now he's making up to the only people he probably feels he can, the people of Two, by protecting them from the monster he'd helped create.

"He's never going to forgive himself for any of it, is he?"

"Some people don't deserve forgiveness."

Stopping midstep, though she isn't sure where they're going anyway, Madge shakes her head.

"You're wrong. Gale deserves forgiveness. He-this wasn't his fault! They manipulated him. He isn't a killer. He wouldn't've killed Prim-"

"But the other kids were okay?" Birdy snaps.

"No-"

"Because I don't give two shits about Primrose Everdeen. She was lucky, but her luck finally ran out." She crosses her arms over her chest and glares out at the mess of absurd looking tents and messily strewn blankets all across the avenue. "Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone that loves them enough that they're willing to die for them."

Her eyes close and she makes a face.

"He should've stayed with his brothers and sister. He never should've come here and he never should've gotten involved. He was being selfish, just leaving them. I tried to warn him but he was too determined. There's always options and he just wanted revenge. It's petty. That's unforgivable."

For a minute Madge wonders if that's how Birdy feels about her own brother. He abandoned her for revenge and earned a death sentence as a thank you.

"Dorothy is in the same boat as me, but I didn't pick my place. That doesn't absolve me and that doesn't give me a clear conscience, but if there's a difference. There's a difference between being the instrument of destruction and the one that creates it." She bites her lip. "When the end comes, I don't think that I was just a kid following orders, that I felt like I was helping the other Victors by giving them the rules and giving them the warnings, will make a lick of difference, but I guarantee you it'll make a difference to him."

Because Gale killed someone he loved. His fire, which had burned to keep his family alive, warm and fed and alive, killed one of the people that was as good as his own sister. He'd helped destroy Katniss, who he loved, maybe as a friend or maybe as more.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," her father had said once, after Madge had tried to give half her sandwich to a boy from the Seam, only to have him throw it back at her. Her help, her pity, was never wanted, and a few days later the boy and his friends had pushed her down, roughed her up, ruining her dress and skinning her knee.

It had earned her boxing lessons, which had saved Gale, so she supposes she should be grateful, but she'd have liked to have just gotten a friend or to have simply fed her hungry classmate.

At least the Victors had never really had the illusion that they were good dangled in their faces. Instruments though they may have been, they destroyed, and they knew the pain they caused, even if they hid it well.

Even if Gale can't forgive himself, even if he doesn't really deserve it, Madge will still give it to him.

"He feels remorse, and so do you," Madge begins slowly. "I think that's a start for forgiveness."

"You only think that because you love him and we're friends, would you think that about anyone else?"

Madge shakes her head. "I would. Because that's the difference. Monsters don't feel remorse, they don't try to make up for their mistakes."

People are fallible, and their pasts can't be erased or forgotten, but they can work towards making all they've ruined right. They can work toward forgiveness, even if they never feel like they earn it.

Birdy rolls her eyes. "You are so full of shit."

"But I'm your friend who is so full of shit, right?"

"Madge," Birdy sighs, rubbing her hand over her face, "we were always friends."

A grin pushing her cheeks up, Madge laughs. "I know."

"Liar." Birdy's smile drops a little and she takes a long breath. "About Gale, Madgie, I know you love him, and I'd put money on him at least really liking you, but…you're too good for him, you know that right? He doesn't deserve you."

Smile slipping down, Madge chews her lip as she thinks.

"Love isn't about what we deserve," she finally says. "You don't get to pick who you love, it isn't a jump, it's a fall."

"We pick who we hurt though," Birdy adds gently. "That's the only credit I give him. He's staying away. At least he realizes he's poison."

"He isn't."

"He is. Trust me," Birdy quickly counters. "The devil can spot his own."

#######

Madge gets the impression it's only within the rebellion itself that Birdy has little sway in, among the Capitol doctors and nurses, which have been allowed in, if only because of their extensive knowledge of quick and effective healing methods that Thirteen and the Districts aren't privy to, she has little trouble getting information.

When she points that out, after Birdy tells her about Finnick Odair's condition, which is rapidly improving to the point that he's going to be moved back to the Capitol for unknown reasons, her expression dims.

"They see me as one of their own. The rebellion sees me as one of them." She toys with the lid on her drink. "I'm not either though. I'm not anything. Maybe I never will be."

Madge almost tells her that she's going to be important with rebuilding. The people in the Capitol aren't evil, they don't deserve punishment and scorn, the revenge for years of Games and hunger that Madge has heard rumbling about among rebel fighters. They're simple, naïve children that have never been educated on the horrors, which have been largely been kept from them, and told that the Games were as popular in the Districts as they were in the Capitol itself.

Cutting them down, forcing them to make penance for the sins of people who are already being tried as war criminals and will likely to be executed, is pointless and cruel.

Only people like Birdy, who see them for what they are, misguided and childlike, will be able to fight for them. They most definitely won't be allowed to have voice for themselves. Thirteen will silence them as surely as if they were avoxes.

Before she can breathe a word though, she hears her name.

It's distant, echoes down the path Birdy had lead them to, and Madge frowns, thinking she's hearing things.

Then she hears it again.

Looking down the path from where they'd stopped, under the eave, along the road where all the injured and displaced have built a temporary city, she squints.

Coming towards her, looking a little thin and drawn, but much less yellow and straggly than when she'd last seen him, is Mr. Abernathy.

Birdy gives her a push. "Well? Go, you idiot. He's going to think you can't walk if you just stand here."

When Madge doesn't move, Birdy pushes her again, laughing. "Go."

Stumbling, her feet are suddenly leaden and clumsy, Madge starts toward him, picking up speed halfway.

Half leaping, she flings herself at him, knocking a lumpy gray knitted cap from his head and letting him wrap her in a hug.

He's talking, mumbling in her hair, but Madge can't make it out. It doesn't matter anyway.

Several minutes tick by and he doesn't loosen his arms around her until Madge gives him a little nudge. "I need to breathe."

Backing up, he keeps his hands on her shoulders, his bloodshot eyes taking her in, inspecting her for injury. When he's happy that she's got all her limbs and isn't bleeding, at least not anywhere he can spot, he cups her face in his rough hands and presses a kiss to her forehead, sighing before wrapping his arms around her again, resting his cheek against her disgusting hair.

"I thought I lost you," he finally says. "I…I thought they got you too."

Shaking her head, Madge tilts her face up and gives him a watery smile. "I'm fine."

Other than being absolutely filthy and smelling like something Mrs. Oberst would've cooked just to torment her.

He doesn't seem to ever want to let her go, just continues to press her to him in a crushing hug.

"Never again, kiddo," he mutters. "I'm never letting you out of my sights again."

#######

Mr. Abernathy has been placed in a room in the mansion.

It's huge, as big as the entire top floor of the mayoral house had been back in Twelve, with a window that runs along the entire west wall and curtains made of dark silk.

Almost immediately he gets Madge clearance to stay with him.

"Can't believe you've been sleeping on the street," he grumbles when she gives him a highly edited version of her past few days. "You should've gone up to someone and told them who you were."

Madge doesn't point out that the name 'Madge Undersee' means less than nothing to every rebel she'd come into contact with, just lets him fuss over her for hours.

She's allowed to use the bathroom in the room to scrub of the various layers of filth and grim that have deposited on her skin. The bathroom is roughly the size of her old room, and if she knew how to swim, she could've done so in the tub.

When she comes out, an hour, maybe two, later, she smells of strawberries and honey, and her hair is blonde again, instead of a strange discolored pile of grease.

"Got you a dress," Mr. Abernathy tells her, pointing to the bed where he's had several simple, but warm and comfortable looking dresses are spread out.

Dropping onto the bed, Madge runs her hand over the dress closest to her, pulling it to her lap, before looking up at him and frowning.

"Mr. Abernathy-"

"Haymitch," he says suddenly.

Madge's nose wrinkles up. "What?"

He runs his hand over his face and flops onto the bed, groaning as he does so.

"Kiddo, I've known you your whole life and then some," he clasps his hands in front of him and presses his lips into a thin line. "Can you at least call me by my first name?"

She isn't sure what else she could call him if not by 'at least' his first name, but she doesn't question him, just stands and moves closer to him, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I didn't know it bothered you," she looks up at him through her drying bangs. "Sorry."

He wraps an arm around her and sighs, kissing her still damp hair.

They sit there for a minute, Madge mouthing the word 'Haymitch' silently, it feels wrong, before Mr. Abernathy clears his throat.

"So, uh, what were you gonna ask, kiddo?"

Toying with the hem of the dress, folding the sleeves in and out, Madge chews her lip.

"How is Katniss?"

He doesn't say anything for a moment, just sits with his rough cheek against her head, before he lets out a long breath.

"Not good." He waits a beat, then adds, "We broke her, sweetheart."


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 are the greatest and I can never thank them enough for all their help.

Madge isn't allowed to attend the trials, of which there are dozens. She chooses not to attend the executions.

There's the woman that was in charge of overseeing tesserea, which stacked the odds against the poorest of the poor, whose trial takes a few days. She's shot only minutes after her conviction as she sobs for her own children, now motherless and to live with their frightful looking grandmother.

Several people who held high positions among the Peacekeeper corps are tried, all executed. They hang them in the City Circle, leaving their bodies for hours, just because they can.

"They left my brother up for a week," Birdy mentions offhandedly, her eyes bored as she looks out from the window of the room she's commandeered for herself, one that overlooks the back lawn of the Presidential Mansion, away from the execution grounds. Madge doesn't mention that Birdy has never told her about her brother. She thinks, maybe, that Birdy instinctively knows Anton had told her. Or maybe she's just continuing to be her cryptic self, it's hard to tell.

Unlike Madge, both she and Mr. Abern-Haymitch- were told they could watch the trials, neither does though.

"What's the point? Already know how this show is going to end," he tells Madge when she asks him why.

Birdy doesn't say anything, only nods absently.

When Snow's trial starts, though, Birdy vanishes behind the walls, coming back with bits of news on the proceedings.

Finnick's interview was shown, each and every sickening piece of his confession, his suffering, shown in the courtroom.

They show the names and photos of families and friends of Victors he'd had killed, which causes Birdy to pale a little and Haymitch to walk away at the mention.

There's footage of the Games, each and every one from his tenure as president, and hundreds of avoxes are mentioned.

His conviction is the swiftest of them all.

"Is he being kept in the dungeon they held Peeta in?" She asks. It would be fitting for a monster like Snow.

Haymitch shakes his head and takes a quick sip of water, still apparently sticking to his detox even when there's ample supply of liquor to keep him happy and no one keeping him from it. "Nope. Still at the mansion."

Madge doesn't ask why. She's smart enough to know that precedent is a powerful thing. Coin is protecting herself, just as she has been since the beginning. Still, the fact that he's so near sends an unpleasant tingle up her back.

Days slip by, mostly spent doing paperwork, helping the fledgling government find its footing. Madge is one of the first to volunteer to help organize the massive relocation projects, moving in people, mostly avoxes and rebel fighters to strategic parts of the city to help rebuild.

"We can't just leave them homeless," she points out, when cornered by an irate rebel fighter that had been placed on a building crew.

"Why not?" He snaps. "They'd've done to us."

Straightening her back and narrowing her eyes, Madge had taken a step toward him, forcing him to back away, out of her space.

"Because we're better than that," she replies firmly. Glaring a little more forcefully, she leans in, before almost growling, "Now go."

He'd gone after that, though Madge never checks to see if he makes it to his crew.

She enjoys the work. It gives her purpose, something that even during her long days of plotting routes for food and supply hadn't wholly supplied her with.

War, she finally decides, isn't her realm. Madge isn't part of the fire that clears the land, and that's okay. Her place is helping to nurture what comes after. Rebuilding and regrowing. Helping people to realize that despite all the pain they've endured, life isn't over. It's only just beginning.

She's picked, by one of the few remaining magistrates that's managed to escape the angry mobs that are roaming through the wild Districts, to help with food distribution as well. The Commissioner from Ten, Sorghum Mills.

"I was with your father when he was in Five. Trained with him," Sorghum tells her, when Madge is called up for her new duty. "If the aptitude you showed in Ten is anything to go by, you're going to do this job just fine."

It's a challenge, the people of the Capitol had thought, very wrongly, that with the end of the war so too would come the end of the rationing.

"But we can't survive on this," a frantic woman, her skin dyed the color of the sky, had yelps when the first of the family packs, fruit from Eleven, dried meat from Ten, and if they were lucky, bread from Nine.

"You can," Madge assures her. "I promise. You'll be okay."

It's a baseless promise. Even as Madge passes out food and directs troops and avoxes to rebuild, rebel soldiers are ripping the city apart around them.

"Put it back!" Birdy snaps, almost daily, at soldiers who come back from patrol carrying the spoils of war.

Gold and silver plates, jewelry, shoes and clothing…

"You stole things too," Madge points out. Even if she doesn't like what the rebels are doing, Birdy had stolen too.

"Food, Madge," Birdy grumbles. "Not silverware. There's a difference between taking what you need to survive and taking trophies."

Nodding, Madge makes a point to remember where she sees soldiers disappearing with suspicious packages, telling Birdy when she sees her in the evenings.

When she isn't helping with the massive displacement, feeding the terrified mobs of the Capitol, and snitching on so called 'liberators' of fine goods, she stays close to Haymitch, who despite looking worn and a bit too thin, is sober and healthier than she's ever seen him.

They don't talk about Katniss. He doesn't seem to see much of her, whether by choice or because he's been banned, Madge isn't sure, but she can't help but think they might both be better off for it. They didn't exactly seem to bring out the best in each other.

"Your mom misses you," he tells her, pulling his lumpy knitted cap low on his head as they explore a garden full of what must be genetically modified flowers.

Despite the cold, which should've rendered the entire area barren except the evergreen bushes, there are tufts of yellow-white snowball bushes, gumball pink oleanders, and purple hyacinths, all in full bloom, as though it's a pleasant summer day.

"I miss her too," Madge sighs, running her finger over a yellow and red tulip that her mother would love.

He nods, plucking a strange kind of violet and handing it to her.

"When this is all over, when they let us all go, I was thinking we should go somewhere else," he begins uncertainly, his eyes cutting to Madge for half a second before he focuses his attention fully on a shrub cut to look like some type of animal. "Maybe Four. They have nice weather. Might be good for 'Tilda."

Madge almost laughs and says 'boring weather', but manages to simply smile and nod. "Four's nice."

She doesn't tell him that he doesn't have to babysit them anymore, that Madge can take care of her mother now, mostly because she thinks, a bit sadly, that they're as close to family as he has now. They're going to take care of each other.

He looks over and gives her a weak smile before reaching out, offering her his hand.

"Getting a little cold, sweetheart, let's get inside."

Birdy is gone most days, even when Snow's trial ends, out doing what she calls 'Corpse control', scouring the Capitol for survivors, though mostly it's uncovering bodies and getting them back to a centralized location for 'disposal'.

Madge dislikes it, in no small part for the lack of pleasant euphemisms, but Birdy simply laughs darkly.

"It's a public health hazard," she points out. "Plus, it isn't pretty work, Madgie. It's unpleasant, why make it sound pretty?"

It's dangerous work, at least once a day the shell of a building collapses, killing those searching for the living among the debris. Despite the danger, it seems to be cathartic for Birdy, who grows oddly calm with it.

"The dead don't bother me," she explains. "They don't want to hurt you, it's the living cause all the trouble."

Madge couldn't agree more.

Ever since they'd made the announcement of Snow's execution something strange had been hanging in the air because of their very much living President Coin.

Coin had been having more meetings with her 'top' advisors, all of which are from Thirteen, and Madge has the sinking suspicion they're still spinning webs, still trying to wrap the Districts up and secure them under the heel of their boots. She just wishes she knew what that something was.

"Probably," is all Birdy had said, when Madge had come to her with her suspicions.

"Should we do something?" Madge asked, her voice low. They weren't in Thirteen anymore, anyone could be listening.

"She's overplaying her hand," Birdy had told her, more concerned with her dinner than what Madge was saying, the poorest attempt at comfort Madge has ever recieved. "Don't worry, she should've stopped while she was ahead. Remember what I said about overconfidence?"

Pride'll get you if you aren't careful.

Somehow, Madge doubted pride and self-certainty will cause Coin's downfall, but she kept that to herself.

#######

The day of Snow's execution, Madge knows something is wrong.

Birdy is sent off before breakfast, to where a tip had told them people had heard moaning from under what had once been a parking garage.

Later, when she came back, dirty and irritable, she and Madge realize there'd never been anyone calling for help. It had been part of a ploy to get one of the voices of reason out of the way.

"Never thought I'd be considered reasonable," Birdy mused.

Finnick was still recovering in Thirteen, and Annie wasn't going to leave his side. Anton was busy with trying to keep food lines moving through the Districts. Four people who'd have fought against Coin's proposition, are out of the way.

Haymitch was gathered up, told to change into his 'dress' clothes, which are just darker gray than his normal District Thirteen outfit, then marched away, only being given a few seconds to give Madge a hug goodbye.

"Don't leave the room today, hear?" He'd whispered.

He didn't have to warn her against going, she had no intention of attending Snow's execution anyway. She's had enough death for a lifetime, even if she's certain Gale will be there and she's anxious to see him. She nods anyway.

With a final kiss on the forehead, he tells her he loves her and gives her one last wary look as he's lead to some kind of meeting.

The urgency of it, the formality, struck her as ominous, and only a few hours later, she'd know why.

It's the reason he'd been plucked up for a meeting, the reason Finnick, Annie, Anton, and Birdy were all kept away.

There was apparently chaos in the Circle, but you'd never have known by the calm that permeated the mansion.

Madge's day is spent aimlessly, mostly reading books she's squirreled away from Snow's own personal collection. She takes a bath, testing out the many strange knobs and fragrances they produce, pulls the heels from her shoes to make them more comfortable during hours of standing, and naps, while outside the walls, everything is being thrown into madness.

"She shot Coin?" Madge asks, sure she's heard him wrong.

Haymitch just nods.

Silence stretches out, seeping into every crevice, under the doors and through the windows, filling the room with an unnatural cool.

"Did you know she was going to do it?"

For a few minutes, he just sits there, at the edge of the bed, turning his glass of water in his hands, his eyes unfocused. Then he sighs.

"I knew she was planning something."

Taking her hand, slowly, almost as though he's loath to relieve the past day, he finally tells her.

Another Game, a finale of sorts, retribution for decades of sacrificing District children for the Capitol's entertainment.

"That's sick," Madge says, more to herself than to him. "Who would vote for that?"

His red rimmed eyes glance up at her, then back down at his glass, answering her question without saying a word.

She stares at him, trying to work out just how he could've possibly voted in favor of something so cruel and disgusting.

"That's as bad as what happened after the war," Madge almost yells, standing up and stepping away, her breathing growing erratic. He couldn't have believed this was the right thing to do, not after everything he'd gone through. "We're as bad as the Capitol if we think the only way to settle things is with more blood. How cou-"

"I know!" He shouts, throwing his glass.

It hits the floor with a dull thud, cracks up the side and rolls harmlessly across the rug.

Madge crosses her arms over her middle protectively, her mouth clamped shut and her eyes focused on him. He won't hurt her, she's almost positive of that, but he's upset. Rightfully so, she thinks. She shouldn't have yelled at him.

It's like with her mother. Saying something the wrong way, speaking too loudly or too forcefully could set her off, cause her dissolve into a puddle of tears. Only with Mr. Abernathy, she isn't sure what he'll do. That worries her. She has to diffuse the situation.

Taking a cautious step forward, she keeps her hands at her middle, her fingers twisting into a painful knot.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Abernathy. I didn't mean to yell. I'm not mad," she tells him, using her softest voice, the one that always calmed her mother.

For a few moments he stares at her, as though he's processing what she's said. His expression slips into horror as his eyes jerk between Madge and the glass.

He sits, his head dropping to his hands, propped, elbows to knees, his breathing evening out.

Hesitantly, Madge takes a step towards him, a hand reaching out for him, but she yanks is back when he looks up, eyes wide and wet.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice cracking. "I-you didn't do anything wrong."

"Mr. Abernathy…"

Madge's words die in her throat at the look on his face.

It isn't defeat, it's past that. Devastation.

Hand starting to shake, Madge reaches out again,

Just as her fingers brush the rough material draped over his shoulder, he stands, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a crushing hug.

She feels the shudder in his chest with each breath, hears him stifling something in his throat as he tightens his hold on her.

"I'm sorry, Pearl," he rasps again, hot breath cutting across her scalp. "I-I just…" He makes a frustrated noise. "I'm sorry."

Nodding against him, Madge squeezes her arms, reassuring him that she isn't mad. "It's okay."

"No, it isn't," he sighs. "Daniel wouldn't've done that."

Madge frowns, not really certain what he means, but doesn't question it, just shushes him and pats his back awkwardly until his breathing steadies and he finally lets go.

#######

Madge hums to him, one of her mother's favorite tunes, until he falls asleep.

He looks younger when he's sleeping. The harsh lines, from years of drinking and smoking in excess, as well as mourning, even if he denies it, his fallen tributes.

It had taken hours of apologies, telling her he was sorry, before he'd calmed enough to settle on the bed and close his eyes, despite Madge's insistence that he had nothing to be sorry for.

"I shouldn't've upset you," she told him, again and again.

"You didn't," he muttered. "And even if you had, I'm a grown man. I can't throw a tantrum everytime someone has something to say I don't like."

Taking her hand, he'd kissed her knuckles and sighed. "I owed her it. That's why I voted with her."

He'd promised her he'd get Peeta out of the Arena, they'd agreed it was Peeta's turn to survive, and he'd fallen down on his promise.

"Whatever she wanted, I owed it to her."

Even though Madge didn't entirely agree with his sentiment, just because he'd failed her didn't mean he owed it to Katniss, or anyone, to follow them blindly, especially when the lives of children were on the line, she nods. What's done is done, and with Coin gone and Katniss locked away, there isn't likely to be another Game, no matter what the vote had been.

When he's softly snoring, sagging eyelids gently closed over bloodshot eyes and mouth hanging slightly agape, Madge kisses his forehead and covers him with one of the heavy blankets tossed at the end of the bed.

She considers going to bed, but then decides to search out Birdy instead. Maybe one of her Capitol informants will have information on Katniss, where she's been locked away and how she's doing.

Carefully opening the door, she creeps out into the hall and down it to the narrow stairs, coming out on the lower floor, into a wide entry.

It's darkened, the sconces on the wall dimmed on a timer to settle the mansion into evening, or so she'd been told.

Enormous stairways stretch up along the back wall, to the darkened walkway above that lead to formal rooms, places where the lives of Finnick Odair and other Victors like him had likely had their fates decided. Debts tallied and favors granted to Game backers by Snow and his lackeys.

It makes Madge's stomach roll.

Her bare feet make no noise as she pads across the way, towards the main kitchen, where Birdy always seems to turn up.

"I like to eat," she'd explained, when Madge had asked her why she was there so much.

She's just ducked under a tapestry that conceals the passage to the back of the kitchen, when she hears soft footfalls along the walkway at the top of the elaborate stairs.

Peaking out, she's curious if it's Birdy, taking one of her late night walks, Madge squints into the dull light, up to the walkway.

Instead of Birdy, still dressed in her blood soaked outfit, she finds a man in a uniform.

Even if a little more slumped than normal, Madge knows who it is. She'll always know who it is.

He almost blends into the darkened window he's staring out, swallowed up by the night sky peaking in through the expanse of glass that covers the wall.

Bare feet cursing her, she steps back onto the frozen tile and quietly pads to the steps and up, pausing at the top to study him.

Of all the things Madge could've imagined Gale in a military uniform isn't one of them.

It's deep green, like the ones Madge had seen on officers in books her father had hidden away, under floorboards and behind walls, never to be spoken of, that had belong to the country that had existed before Panem. The boots are shiny, dark, barely used by the looks of it, and she wonders if his entire outfit was provided for the execution.

Dress of one of their highest profile faces for the public to associate with final fall of the old regime.

That hadn't exactly worked out for them, Madge thinks, not sure if she's happy or not about that.

Swallowing, she steadies her breath and rubs some of the sweat from her hands, onto the thick material of her dress, searching for her courage as she closes the space between them.

"Gale?"

When he doesn't answer, she takes a few more hesitant steps forward and reaches out.

Her fingers barely graze the fabric of his coat when he turns, his expression flat, not so much as an ember burning in his eyes.

Madge forces a smile. "Avoiding me?"

His expression doesn't change, there's no hint that he remembers accusing her of the very same thing a lifetime ago in Thirteen.

They don't speak for several long seconds, just stare, a brittle uncertainty stretching between them.

He looks more exhausted than she's ever seen him. Even when he'd been in the mines, his life being beaten from him, he hadn't looked quite this broken. Thirteen has done what the Capitol had only tried to do, maybe even worse. They've taken his spirit, warped it and shattered it, forced it back together and turned him into their voice.

They've ruined Gale as much as they ruined Katniss, only Gale had been a willing participant, and just as Birdy had said, that probably adds to his misery.

Finally, he speaks, his voice a harsh rasp.

"Do you think it was my bomb?"

Madge pulls her hand back and stares at him.

As much as she'd like to say that she knows it wasn't, there's no way to tell, no way to ever really know.

No rebel will ever admit to such an underhanded plan, either planning to kill Katniss' spirit or the possible replacement to the Mockingjay, and anyone that might've known on the Capitol's side isn't going to talk. They have no incentive to.

Or they're dead.

What happened will remain a mystery, probably forever.

"Katniss does," he says softly. "She's going to blame me for Prim's death for the rest of her life."

Nothing else matters. Not whether she'd pick Peeta over him, not whether she ever could've loved him if the Games hadn't happened, his best friend isn't his best friend anymore, and it's his fault.

"I killed Prim and now I've as good as killed Katniss." His jaw tenses and he glares down, through the window at the grounds below, now dusted in powder fine snow.

Madge reaches out. "Gale-"

He jerks away, closes his eyes. "Just leave, Madge." His eyes open, a little light from the sconces burning in them. "Before I do something and kill you too."

Something in Madge's chest cracks, opening up and leaking a dull ache through her body, and she has to fight back the sob clawing at her throat.

"No," she reaches out again, grabbing his hand before he has a chance to pull away. "Gale, you're going to feel like it was your fault no matter what I say. But whether it was your bomb or not doesn't matter to me."

"It should," he snaps. "I'm a killer, Madge. I killed those people in Two and I killed those kids." He swallows hard, his expression disgusted. "Do you know what Plutarch told me? He told me I'd've made a fine Gamemaker."

A backhanded compliment, even if it hadn't been intended as one.

"I have a mind like one of the bastards that-I'm as bad as the people that designed the Games." He laughs darkly. "I should've died in that house."

Taking a step forward, Madge shakes her head, blinking back tears.

He hates himself, it radiates from him, and it makes the ache in her chest intensify.

"You regret it though, Gale. None of them ever did, none of them ever would."

And that's the difference. He knows he's made a mistake, one that's cost not just lives, but a piece of his own being.

"You were in a terrible situation. You were backed into a corner and you fought with everything you had. You never meant for any of this to happen."

He isn't a killer. He's a fighter, a survivor, a victim of circumstance, but not a killer.

"Feeling like shit because you murdered people doesn't make them any less dead," he growls. "It doesn't matter what my reasons were. I killed them. Nothing changes that."

Tears begin sliding down Madge's cheeks as she studies the emptiness in Gale's eyes.

Just like Katniss, Thirteen and Coin had used him up and broken him into pieces. They'd plucked him up and found the darkest part of his soul, fed it and prodded it until it gave them what they wanted, and now they were reaping the benefits while he suffers the consequences.

Anger, not just at Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee, but at ever person that had encouraged the worst in Gale, bubbles up in Madge's stomach.

He's nineteen years old. He's had to raise his brothers and sister, feed and shelter them, protect them, for years.

They had no right to ferret out the worst impulses he had, the darkest thoughts, bred by years of suffering and cruelty, and twist them to their benefit.

They had no right to force Katniss to be the Mockingjay.

They had no right to send Prim to her death.

They're as bad as the Capitol, maybe even worse. At least the Capitol is a familiar devil. Its moves are all but certain, but Thirteen is a mystery, and not one she's all that keen on learning more about.

"Nothing changes the past, but you can try to make up for it." Even if it's a monumental, impossible task.

He closes his eyes, grimacing. "How do you make up for cold blooded murder?"

Madge swallows down a lump, fresh tears forming in her eyes.

Gale has been through so much, and this is the pay off. Not a happy ending with the girl he loves, even as a friend, but endless guilt and a lifetime of trying to make amends for something he shouldn't have had a part in to begin with.

Before she can stop herself, he clearly doesn't want her contact or her words, Madge grabs the front of his coat and pulls him to her, quickly wrapping her arms around him.

She takes a shuddering breath.

"I don't know," she hears her voice crack, "but we'll figure it out."

Because like Haymitch, Gale is her family now. Whether he loves her as a friend or something more, she isn't abandoning him. He's stumbled, fallen badly, but just like him and his family had stood by her when they were in the woods, she's going to stand by him. There's always a chance for redemption, she's certain of it.

She loves him, and she's going to help him.

Her arms tighten and she presses her ear to his chest, closes her eyes and memorizes the rapid rhythm of his heat, muffled by his coat.

After a minute, his arms come up, slowly wrapping around her and his cheek resting on the top of her head.

He takes a shuddering breath and Madge feels her scalp grow damp, his nose nuzzling into her hair and his hot breath coming in short bursts against her head.

She holds him tighter. It's all she can do.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> A million thanks to Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 for putting up with me and making sure this isn't a mess.

Madge wakes with Gale curled around her, warm breath coming in even, sleepy puffs over her shoulder, ruffling her hair where it lays, wild and tangled.

He'd tried to run off and leave her, repeating again and again that he was just going to hurt her.

"I was hurting you back in Twelve and in Thirteen," he'd told her, trying to unwind from her fingers. "Why should it be any different now?"

"You weren't trying to-"

"But I still did," he snapped. "I was even trying to help Katniss, and look what happened." He'd finally unlinked her hands from his. "I can't hurt anyone else. I won't."

Madge had latched back onto him, refusing to let him push her away again.

There'd been too much of that between them, too much push and pull. Gale vacillating between his feelings for Katniss and Madge, and Madge forcing what she felt down, trying to be a good friend, trying not to hurt anyone.

It hadn't done them any good then, and it won't do them any good now.

Even if what had been building between them has died, burned to ash like the country around them, Madge isn't going to let him punish himself.

She owes it to Katniss, not as she is, but the girl that had been before the Capitol and the Games, Thirteen, becoming the Mockingjay, had torn her to pieces. She owes it to Mrs. Hawthorne, for keeping an eye on Madge and her mother during their days in the woods, for listening to her, and for caring that she might not see Madge again during their goodbye. She owes it to Vick, for being her friend, for making her laugh, for seeing her as a person, never as someone to scorn.

They love Gale, and so does she.

"Then don't," she'd whispered, squeezing him tighter to her, hoping he understood, even if she didn't quite understand it herself.

Finally, as the snow grew, slowly building up on the ground outside the window, Gale had sighed.

"Go back to your room, Madge."

She'd shaken her head against his chest.

"Madge…"

Her face inched up until she was looking at him.

He'd stared down at her, empty eyed and broken, waiting for her to see him for what he is, turn and leave, but she wouldn't. She couldn't.

Certain as she is that it was wrong and wholly selfish, Katniss is locked away, possibly to be executed, and their world is collapsing around them, Madge couldn't let him go again. She'd spent too long sacrificing her happiness.

Katniss had given of herself until it broke her, turned her into nothing more than open wounds and a shattered soul.

Maybe it was selfish, to use Katniss' suffering as a bitter lesson, but Madge wants to live. She wants Gale to live, and if the only way to do that is to study the ugly mistakes of others, then that's what she'll do.

They'd fought their demons, battled their way through the war scarred country, and even if the end result isn't what they'd expected, nowhere near what they'd hoped, they deserve their happy ending.

Gale deserves happiness, even if it isn't with her.

She wants it to be, though, more than anything in that moment.

Tilting her head a little more, Madge pressed down on her toes, inching up by a fraction.

His lips were as chapped and rough as she remembered, just as grating against hers as they had been, and the prickle of his whiskers was every bit as irritating as before.

Before she could think not to, tell herself that this isn't the time, her hands had crawled up the front of his uniform, weaving into his hair, thick and coarse and perfect.

She'd wasted too much time being cautious. Even if it was wrong, she wanted to kiss him, to feel his breath and his heartbeat, to know he was alive. She'd suffered for this, and she wouldn't let the moment slip by without trying. He might push her away, but she had to take that chance.

Just one time.

Gale's hands, skin catching on the fabric of her dress, eased around her, crushing her to him.

The kisses had gotten more insistent, and somehow Madge found herself pinned between Gale and the wall beside the widow.

"Madge…" Gale's voice, breathless and weak, vibrated through her body, his lips against her ear.

He pulled back, his expression fragile.

"You-you deserve better than me."

Running her hands up the front of his uniform, her thumbs grazing the shiny buttons, so very not Gale, she'd tugged him closer, keeping him from breaking from her.

"Don't leave me," she whispered. "You promised we could try. Remember?"

It was grasping at straws, holding a piecrust promise said in the heat of a moment over his head, but she was desperate.

The only way she could keep him from vanishing, into the mountains of Two or the forests of Seven, even the sea of Four, punishing himself and everyone that cares about him, was to keep him close. By whatever means that took.

His shoulders had drooped, dark lashes closing weakly over his storm-less eyes, before he'd wrapped himself back around her, nodding silently.

It might've been a hollow victory, getting him to give in, but she'd take what she could. He didn't need to be alone and she needed to help him, she had to.

She'd taken him by the hand and pulled him with her, down steps and then one of the halls, to a darkened room at the edge of the mansion.

Mr. Abernathy had called it 'The Lilac Room', when he'd taken her there.

"I remember it from my Tour," he'd told her. "Hasn't changed a bit."

It was ignored and shut up, forgotten by most. A sanctuary amid the madness that had overtaken the mansion.

There weren't just lilacs, though Madge could smell them filling the space around her. Delicate blooms, exotic and boldly colored, covered the walls and ceilings, scattered along the floor. Broad leaves, varying shades of green, cocooned the entire room, settling it in a peaceful quiet. For some reason, it reminded her of her mother.

It was some kind of indoor garden, he'd explained.

"Bastards like the beauty of the outdoors, but aren't too fond of getting dirty."

Madge had nodded. It was beautiful, but there was definitely something missing, something hollow about the room full of plant life.

She finally decided it was the quiet of it. No bugs buzzing or birds chirping made for an eerie forest in the middle of a mansion.

The walls and ceilings were glass, opening up to the world around them, but not an inch of sky could be seen, only thin beams of sunlight could break through the tight woody vines and thick green foliage that encased the room.

In the belly of the evening, only silver moonlight sifted in, coloring all the vibrant blooms in a ghostly pallor. Faded spirits of flowers stolen from their natural homes.

Gale hadn't questioned her, just followed her steps, avoiding the curling leaves and fallen blossoms that littered the ground. The people that tended the plants had fled, and without them the room was slowly dissolving into disrepair, something Madge liked. Too much perfection, she decided, was unnerving.

At the outer wall there's a bench, carved from the stump of a giant tree.

It's decorated with delicate swirls, a mish-mash of some poor person from Seven's painstaking work no doubt, that Madge had been mesmerized with the first time she'd seen it.

Gently, Madge tugs him down, prepared to listen to him tell her about all his mistakes, cry, heal, but he just sighs.

Just like when they'd been in Twelve, when he'd been drunk and she'd been trying to keep him from a run in with Peacekeepers, he pulls her to him, curling around her and falling asleep, his nose pressing gently against her neck as she reclines into the soft cushion of fallen blooms.

Maybe it was because she's there, maybe any girl would've done because he just needs the comfort of someone near, whether he'd say it or not. Madge is the one there, though, the one he's clinging to in the darkest moment of his life.

He's like Mr. Abernathy-Haymitch-much more peaceful in sleep.

The weariness is gone, evaporated like the freshly fallen snow will do in the morning sun. Vanished without a trace, leaving only shallow crevices where it had puddled.

Pressing her nose to his hair, she inhales the scent of the outdoors, wet earth, cold, and the familiar smell of cigar smoke, mixing like a pleasant memory, clinging to him and wrapping around her warmly, beating back the fragrance of lilacs and greenery.

Madge lets her lips graze over his forehead, hoping his dreams are more pleasant than his reality.

"Sweet dreams, Gale," she whispers, her eyelids slip closed and her arms tightening around his shoulders as she settles more comfortably.

#######

When she wakes it's to empty arms and a sense of panic.

Gale is gone.

She sits up in a panic, heart pounding and his name on her lips, ready to yell for him, before she thinks better of it. There's no reason to start a panic or draw attention to herself.

Crawling off the bench, she steps over debris, dashing across the room, barely taking note that the moon light has vanished behind the thick foliage across the windows.

Opening the door, Madge creeps out and down the hall.

It's silent, dark and cold, but at the end of the hall she sees someone tall and solid silhouetted against the window, in the dim light the sconces provide.

Letting out a long sigh of relief, Madge starts to stride up to him and wrap her arms around him, warn him never to scare her like that again, but stops when she gets a few yards closer.

At the corner of the window someone is sitting cross-legged, head resting against one of the panes. Through the silence, Madge hears murmuring.

Madge edges toward the side of the hall and sneaks closer, behind a potted plant, straining until she can hear the conversation through the air.

"I don't deserve Madge."

"No argument here," the other figure snorts.

"Thanks," Gale mutters, rubbing his hand over his face.

Squinting, Madge sees Birdy stand and stretch, pulling her coat more tightly around her.

"This isn't about what you deserve." She tells him as she takes up the spot next to him. "People like you and me, we may never get to be happy, and if we do, we sure as hell don't deserve to be, but because of what we've done we need to create as much as we can. Not destroy it."

She looks over at him, her face shadowed in the moonlight. "Madge doesn't deserve to feel rejected just because you're a miserable shit. If things are meant to fall apart, then they will, but let her have her chance. You've caused enough sadness, don't cause more."

Gale stares down at her, studying her carefully, before he lets out a long breath.

"What if that's what I do anyway? What if I hurt her?"

There's so much pain in his voice that Madge wants to go to him, pull him into a hug and tell him that the only way he'll hurt her is by keeping her at arm's length, but she's rooted in the spot, frozen listening to him and Birdy have what must be their first civil conversation ever.

"Don't make her decisions for her," she answers, her eyes focused on the city lights, just visible over the wall surrounding the mansion. "We have to let the people we love make their own mistakes. We can't protect them from everything."

Gale lets out a long breath. "I wish we could."

They're quiet for a few minutes, both watching swirls of snow dance in the moonlight outside, transfixed by the cold simplicity of it, before Birdy breaks the silence.

"Do you love her?"

He doesn't answer, just continues to stare at the snow, and Madge feels her heart start to crack.

He doesn't want to hurt her, but he doesn't love her.

Of course Gale doesn't love her. Not in any way he can say that he does, anyways. She's his friend, but that isn't what Birdy is asking, and he knows that.

Maybe that's what he's been trying to tell her all this time. He'll love again, just not her.

Much as she wants to leave, go back to her and Haymitch's room and cry herself to sleep, she can't. She won't. She'd made a promise that if he was alive who he loved wouldn't matter, she'd accept whatever scraps of friendly affection she was thrown and love him from a distance. She'd promised to give up anything for him to be alive, and maybe his love was the cost.

Her feet stay still and she blinks back tears, refusing to cry again, when she hears Birdy's voice break the silence again.

"Loving people can sometimes mean letting them go," she says softly, almost talking to herself. "Sometimes it can be letting them fight for you, and sometimes it can mean fighting your demons for them."

Madge feels her heart leap up into her throat and wishes she could see Gale's face. Birdy wouldn't say something like that, wouldn't be talking about this for no reason. She knows that Gale is probably thinking about Katniss, but a small, stupidly hopeful part of her, hopes he's thinking about her.

Madge can hear the frown in Gale's voice. "How are you supposed to know which one you need to do?"

The laugh is almost there in Birdy's voice as she wrinkles her nose and smiles up at him. "You don't. You just guess and hope that if you're wrong you realize it before the other person wises up."

She gives him a gentle shove, then a small smile, before turning and starting to walk off.

Gale frowns at her back before he calls after her.

"Why are you being…not awful?"

She turns, her back to Madge's hiding spot, but the smile is clear in her voice. "Madge is my friend. I want her to be happy, and even if I think you're going to be a monumental waste of her time, she deserves to make her own choices. I want her to make her own mistakes and learn. She deserves that much."

Without another word, Birdy walks off, down the hall and towards Madge's hiding spot.

Ducking down, Madge crouches down beside the pot, certain she's well concealed.

Birdy stops anyways.

At first Madge thinks she's just tying her shoe. She drops down on a knee and begins toying with her laces, but then she realizes, they aren't untied.

"You know, for someone that grew up in a Mayor's house, you aren't very stealthy," she says lowly, her eyes still focused on her laces.

Madge scowls at her from behind a huge leaf, pushing it up to set her glare a little more firmly. "I wasn't sure I wanted to be stealthy or not."

If she'd wanted to she could be, she's sure of it.

"Right," Birdy mutters, rolling her eyes. "Next time be mindful of the light. Dorothy was distracted, but if he hadn't, he'd have seen your shadow dancing around before I even did."

Taking a deep, irritated breath, Madge nods. "Okay."

Birdy starts to stand, but Madge stops her with a word, "Thanks."

Eyes cutting over, Birdy smiles slightly. "Thanks? You should be cursing me. I think I just talked that asshole into letting you be his little girlfriend." Her grin widens. "I don't see why you'd want to be with him anyways. He's absolutely hideous. Especially in that uniform they've got him sewn into."

Madge almost snorts, just barely saving herself with a quick hand over her mouth.

"Yeah, he's just so ugly."

"Absolutely revolting," Birdy adds with a grin, switching feet to keep up the appearance in case Gale should look back. "I think I'll go empty my stomach and burn my skin off in the shower just to keep his poor genetics from infecting me."

Rolling her eyes, Madge smiles a little wider. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Birdy sighs, absently fiddling with her laces for a second more before standing up and popping her back. "See you later, Madgie."

She leaves, and Madge waits until her footsteps die out before she slides up the wall and takes a deep breath, preparing for whatever might come with Gale.

Her feet make only the softest of noises as she walks to him.

He must not feel her behind him, too distracted by the snow and his own thoughts to hear her, and when she reaches out and grazes her fingers over the coarse fabric of his uniform, he jerks, startled eyes glaring over his shoulder at her.

His expression softens when he realizes who it is. "Madge?"

Swallowing down her fear of rejection, this isn't about her or her stupid crush right now, it's about Gale and his self-loathing.

"I woke up and you were gone," she points out, feeling foolish. Of course she'd woken up and he was gone. Obvious. "I was worried."

His lips force up, into a pained smile. "I can take care of myself."

Nodding, Madge twines her fingers together and drops her eyes to the floor. "I know-I just-that doesn't mean I can't worry."

"I don't want you to worry about me."

"That isn't something you can control," she tells him simply, taking a step forward and letting her eyes trace up the cut of his jacket. "Whether you're here or in Two, I'm going to worry."

She doesn't say because she loves him, he knows that, just keeps her eyes focused on the falling snow over his shoulder.

"I might never get over this, Madge," he whispers, voice hoarse. "I don't want you dragged down."

His hand, rough and calloused, gentle, cups her cheek then tilts her chin up a fraction, his thumb brushing over her lip.

"Whether you're here or in Two, whether I'm with you or not, I'm going to worry, Gale," she whispers back. "Not being near will only make it worse."

Not being able to see him, make sure he knows that he's loved and good and needed, will only tear her apart.

His jaw tightens and he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, the stubble over it mesmerizing Madge.

"I don't like-I'm used to being the rescuer, not the bad guy," he finally says, his voice scratchy, breaking on the last word. "When my dad died, when my family needed me, when Katniss' family needed me, I saved them. I was the good guy…and now I've destroyed my best friend."

Madge's hand reaches up and her fingers trace along his jaw, prickling on his stubble. He has an almost pathological need to be the hero, and Coin, Mr. Latier, and even Mr. Heavensbee have destroyed the foundation that he's built himself on.

If he isn't the good guy, Gale doesn't know who he is, that much is clear.

She starts to tell him Katniss is strong. She survived her father's death, winters in the Seam, and two Hunger Games, she's tough. Madge can't bring herself to say it though.

Prim was Katniss' heart and soul. She'd gone into the Games for her. She'd risked her life for Prim.

Madge can't guarantee that Katniss ever will get over this, and she doesn't want to give Gale that false hope.

All she can do is help him see that even though he didn't play the hero this time, that doesn't ruin him. Anyone can be redeemed, especially him.

He just has to pick his battles, wage little wars to get back to where he was.

"You can be the good guy again," she softly tells him. "Maybe just start small."

Dark hair falls in his eyes as he drops his gaze and nods, down to the floor, to Madge's bare feet as she wiggles her icy toes.

A soft chuckle rumbles out of his chest. "Why don't you have any shoes on?"

Madge shrugs.

Before she can come up with an explanation, she isn't really sure why, she's getting as bad as her mother with her penchant for leaving footwear, Gale swoops down and scoops her up causing her to squeal.

"Gale," she manages to lower her voice, "what are you doing?"

Adjusting her in his arms, securing her against his chest a little more, he gives her a feeble smile. "Starting small?"

Cool air seeps around Madge's legs, dangling limply over Gale's arm, over her exposed neck and arms, and she wraps them around his neck, leeching off his warmth.

It's not keeping her alive by feeding her, trading to keep her clothed, or even protecting her family in a time of utmost need, it's only one small gesture that he can build on, but it's a step in the right direction.

Snuggling into his shoulder, inhaling the scent of harsh detergent and cold air that cling to him, Madge looks at him through her lashes.

"You aren't going to run away again?"

Gale's eyes glow in the light of the sconces, focused on the empty hall for a few moments before he lets them flicker down to Madge.

"I'm going back to Two. I have to, do you understand?"

She does. Two is where he'd started down this dark path, and it's where he wants to start his journey back to who he was. He has to go back.

Nodding, Madge tightens her arms and pulls closer to him, her lips a breath from his ear. "I'm coming with you, understand?"

When she pulls back his eyes shine and his jaw tightens, she can hear him swallowing again, harsh and tired.

"You're making a mistake," he insists softly, his eyes back on the ground.

Gently, Madge turns his face, making him look at her.

She holds his gaze for a moment, then leans forward, pressing a quick, soft kiss to his lips.

"It's not, but if it were, it's mine to make."

Because like Birdy had said, sometimes love is letting go, and sometimes it's fighting, the trick is to figure out which love you're in.

Madge has already figured that out. There should've never been any question.

She'd tried walking away, and look where that had got them.

Nothing about them has been easy, not where they came from, not becoming friends, not discovering that what they felt was something more. It's been a fight from the first barb, and she doesn't expect this next step to be any less tumultuous.

In the end though, she knows it'll be worth it.

Love always is.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> As always, Fortunefaded2012 and Nursekelly0429 are wonderful and amazing for suffering through this with me. Thanks for not reaching through the computer and strangling me.

Gale stays through the trial, testifying on Katniss' behalf.

"I made this mess," he tells Madge when he meets her outside the courtroom, closed again, a private circus, after giving his testimony. "I should be able to do more."

Madge pulls him into a hug, letting her ear rest against his chest and closing her eyes.

She's given up trying to convince him to stop blaming himself, at least for the time being.

"Nothing you say will ever change what he thinks," Birdy explained when Madge voiced her frustration to her. "Trust me."

"I can't just do nothing," Madge muttered, picking at a loose thread on her dress.

Reinforcement is the only way she could think to help him, constant reassurance that he wasn't the bad guy, that the people that had put his plans to use were to blame. Katniss might not be able to see that, and Madge couldn't blame her for that, but it was the truth.

"Truth is relative," Birdy shrugged, tossing her bag off the bed and flopping down. She gave Madge a small smile. "Take it from someone who knows, all you can do for someone that hates themselves, is love them."

Life will move on, and while time and distance will heal the wounds this war had caused, there will always be a scar.

"And everytime he sees something that reminds him of it, every single time he sees those scars, he's gonna think about the lives he took, the lives he ruined." She sighed. "You're never gonna fix him. Don't do this, don't try to hold on, if you think that, okay?"

Madge nodded, rubbing her eyes.

Gale isn't broken, she knows that, but he isn't whole anymore either.

This road she's starting down won't be easy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she isn't going to turn back.

"I love him, Birdy," she whispered. "I'm not going to fix him or hold him together but…I want to help him."

Maybe by holding his hand, wiping tears, telling him he's not a monster, making him see his family or just making sure he eats, whatever it takes.

It isn't going to make him whole again. No matter how many times Gale picks up the pieces of his soul and forces them back together, there will always be cracks, missing chunks where Prim and Katniss had been, where his sense of self before he'd helped to ruin so many had been, and there's nothing Madge will ever be able to do about that.

She can only hope that love, both hers and his family's, can fill in the cracks, shrink the holes. It will never be perfect, but nothing ever is.

"I've heard some sappy shit in my life," Birdy rolled her eyes as Madge explained herself, "but that takes the cake."

Madge had grabbed a pillow and hurled it at her head, smacking her in the face for that.

Still, she wishes there were more she could do for him than just listen and hold him each time he falls apart.

"You're doing all you can," she assures him.

Mr. Aberna-Haymitch-has told her that Katniss will be acquitted, or pardoned, relieved of the charges against her, with or without the testimony of people like Gale and himself.

"What if they need her again?" He muttered bitterly. "Can't use what isn't there, right Pearl?"

Madge had nodded grimly, imagining them pulling Katniss out of whatever hole they hid her away in for celebrations and in the event of another was, as a fresh figurehead.

It's sickening, demeaning, and Madge isn't able to eat after he tells her it.

Had they not taken enough from her? Her family, her sister, her best friend, and now her future?

… you and everyone else thinks they're the hero in this story, but you aren't, they aren't, and I'm sure as hell not. This story doesn't have heroes, just people who are less awful than others…

Suddenly, Birdy's words seem much more steeped in truth.

There are no heroes, both the Capitol and District Thirteen have ensured that. The only people left are just husks, the empty shells of those who'd believed they were fighting for something better, only to have cold reality thrown in their faces. Good people doing terrible things, and having to live with the consequences.

They'd been molded into the monsters they were fighting, and they hadn't even noticed until it was too late.

"It isn't enough," Gale mumbles into her hair.

And in his mind, she doubts it'll ever be enough. He's going to spend the rest of his life knee deep in the blood of those he killed, trying to make amends and never thinking that he's made amends for his weakness in Thirteen.

Madge just stays quiet, holding him.

There's nothing more she can do.

#######

"Two sounds nice, love," Madge's mother coos as she flips through a book of picture, mountains and lakes, flora and fauna, in District Two.

"Sounds like a crap hole," Haymitch grumbles, trying to push another book, one over District Four, towards her. "Look, 'Tilda, don't you want to see the ocean?"

Madge leans back, against the headboard, and shoots him a look.

He's being obstinate, just because he thinks Gale is a bad influence on her.

"Look at the shit storm he's caused here," he'd complained, the night Madge's mother had arrived from Thirteen. "Look how he treated you back in Twelve. He's a boil."

"He was always such a lovely boy. He even helped us in the woods when everyone was so rude," her mother had countered, her pale eyebrows pulled together in confusion. She'd looked at Madge in concern. "Did something happen?"

Refusing to even dignify his slights with responses, Madge had just patted her mother's hand. "No, momma. Just the war."

Haymitch had dropped the subject after that, not wanting to upset her mother, who had apparently not taken the revelry of the war's end very well back in Thirteen.

"They were so loud," she told Madge when they picked her up from the hovercraft. "Haymitch got me little plugs for my ears to keep the noise down, but it still made my head just pound."

Crawling forward and settling on her stomach beside her mother, Madge props herself up on her elbows and smiles up at her.

"We can always go visit Four. Besides, if we go to Two, we'll see Hazelle and the kids again. That sounds nice, doesn't it?"

Her mother's eyes light up almost instantly.

When Haymitch had been busy with the war, planning and plotting, and then left for the Capitol at the end, the Hawthornes had kept her mother company.

"Hazelle taught me to knit hats," she'd proudly told Madge, presenting her with a lumpy gray cap. "I made one for Haymitch too."

Madge almost laughs, remembering his now battered cap he's almost never without. "I've seen it."

She'd told Madge about playing games with the boys and dolls with Posy, remembering each instance fondly.

Gale's family is Madge's winning hand.

Biting her lip, her mother looks to Haymitch. "Please?"

#######

"You used your poor mother against Mr. Haymitch, huh?" Birdy laughs, tossing socks into her bag. "Low, Madgie."

"She's got him tied around her finger," Katy-Jo Lewes points out, lifting her pinky in demonstration. "What an amazing power to have."

Madge rolls her eyes.

She doesn't point out that her mother and her are all the family Haymitch has in the world. He's tied to them through tragedy. He held Maysilee's hand as she died and he's watched out for her sister for the last quarter century. Letting them vanish into the wilds of Two would be hard on him, especially considering the alternative.

"They want me to go back to Twelve," he'd told Madge the evening Katniss' verdict had come down, after her mother had gone to sleep.

Madge nodded. "Will you go?"

He shook his head, his rough fingers brushing a few delicate strands from her mother's face before he looked up.

"I'm-I've caused those kids enough trouble. There are others going back, they'll keep an eye on them."

The words 'but they need you' almost topple out of Madge's mouth, but she clamps down.

The reality of the situation is, Haymitch isn't good for Katniss. They're too much alike, play against the worst in the other, and both end up being the worse for it. It's toxic, and the farther they are from one another, the better they both will be.

Madge had kissed his cheek after that, settled in on his other side and fallen asleep.

"He's smitten, sugar," Katy-Jo Lewes adds, pinching Madge's side. "I know a whipped pup when I see one." She points to Birdy. "Case in point."

Birdy throws a pillow at her.

"She hates it when I'm right," Katy-Jo Lewes laughs, tossing the pillow back at her. "Get up, sunshine, let's go find your merman."

Shooting her a filthy look, Birdy gets up, slinging her bag over her shoulder before sticking her tongue out.

"I hope it works for you," Madge finally says, walking over and pulling her into a hug.

Giving her a squeeze, Birdy whispers, "I hope it works out for you, too."

Pulling back, Madge nods. She's being genuine for once, and she tries to etch the memory into her mind.

"What if it doesn't?" She asks, before she can think better of it.

Birdy gives her a weak smile. "Then you walk away. This is a new world. We're making it, and you aren't stuck in anything." Her smile widens. "If all else fails, you can come back here and work with me in the historical restoration or go to Ten with Katy-Jo Lewes and learn the fine art of coffee making."

A little laugh bubbles out of Madge's middle and she nods. She has options. She isn't just the Mayor's daughter anymore, she isn't alone. Her friends are watching out for her. There's no abandonment or loneliness in her future.

Taking a deep breath, Birdy's eyes drop to her feet. "I wonder the same thing too, you know? What if he's wised up to what a waste I am?"

"You aren't a waste," Madge grumbles. She's too much like Gale, thinking the worst of herself, no wonder they've never gotten along.

And if she needs a place to lie low, if things don't work out, Madge is ready to offer it up. That's what friends do.

She narrows her eyes, looking between the both of them. "You and Katy-Jo Lewes are going to come visit me, aren't you?"

"If it'll annoy Dorothy I'll move in with y'all." She frowns. "Though I don't think I could handle seeing that revolting face of his everyday."

Madge snorts. "Yeah, he's almost as ugly as Anton."

"I know. One butt-face is enough for me." She shakes her head. "At least Anton has his obnoxiously saccharine personality to fall back on. What's Dorothy got? I've met rattlers with sweeter dispositions."

Shaking her head, Madge just smiles.

She's going to miss her. She might be abrasive and Madge might not always understand her humor, but having her, and Katy-Jo Lewes, who'd arrived a few days prior, around is like having a normal friendship for the first time in her life, despite how it came about.

"Birdy, quite yammering and come on," Katy-Jo Lewes yells from the door, her hand at her hips. "We got a boy to see."

"Oh, shut up," Birdy grumbles back, her color deepening. "He's probably gonna tell me to take a hike."

"With him, to a sand dune or whatever place those mermen take their lady friends," Katy-Jo Lewes tells her with a smirk, wagging her eyebrows.

"'Lady friend'?" Birdy's face pulls back in disgust. "I'm not eighty. You need therapy."

"I'll come with you. We'll get a group discount."

"Don't need it," Birdy quips, pulling out her compact and tossing it at Katy-Jo Lewes' head. "Look at those numbers. With that kind of money I can afford to send you to every therapist that crawls out of the woodwork."

Katy-Jo Lewes' eyes widen as they scan the screen of the compact, where the mirror should be.

Walking over, Madge peeks over Katy-Jo Lewes' shoulder and gasps.

"Where did you get all this?" She asks, taking the compact from a silently stunned Katy-Jo Lewes' hand. "Did you steal it?"

After all the grief she'd given the rebels for stealing, if she stole all this money…

Birdy laughs, eyes twinkling. "Oh, that's the new Birdy. Old Birdy didn't have quite so many scruples." She shrugs. "But if it makes you feel any better, I only took from people who truly deserved it."

Who they were and what they did to deserve losing the huge amounts of money Birdy had taken from them, Madge never learns, and part of doesn't want to. Some things are best left a mystery.

They leave a few hours later, on a train, much to Madge's disappointment.

"I hate trains," Birdy sighs.

Madge gives her a brave smile. "This ride stops in a happy place though."

Not a game, not destroying families, not pain and sadness, but District Four and someone that loves her, despite what she thinks.

"You are entirely too positive," Birdy complains, tossing her bag onto the train.

Katy-Jo Lewes grabs her and pulls her into a hug. "We'll see you soon, okay?"

Her long arm reaches out, and Madge feels Birdy pulled into her side, Katy-Jo Lewes resting her chin on their heads.

"We're sisters, the three of us, okay?" She sniffles. "We stick together."

"Except when we're chasing mermen, right?" Birdy's muffled voice asks.

Katy-Jo Lewes' chin bumps Madge's head as she nods. "Right."

They board after that, promising Madge they'll call when they get there and that she's not rid of them, not by a long shot.

#######

"I'm going to be there soon," Madge tells Gale, giving him one last hug as they wait in the shadow of an enormous hovercraft.

Katniss has been taken to Twelve, transported a few days before.

Madge wanted to go to her, tell her she'll see her someday, but the opportunity never arose. She was shuttled off, quietly, no fanfare or chance for anyone to whisper so much as a word of comfort before she was gone. She's not mentioned by the interim government, her likeness is wiped from the slate. All that's left of her is an empty cell and memories.

And memories fade, get distorted, Madge can only hope that kinder souls win out and all that Katniss sacrificed isn't swept away. She isn't swept away.

"Maybe I can go to Twelve," Madge mentions to Haymitch. He makes a face and she quickly adds, "Eventually."

He doesn't comment on that, positive or negative, but she gets the impression he wouldn't mind never seeing District Twelve ever again. She doesn't blame him. It holds only misery for him.

For now, she'll settle on just getting him and her mother to Two, starting over and trying for a better life than they're leaving behind.

They can't leave for a few weeks. Madge has work with the relocation group to finish and Haymitch has been recruited for a committee for the preservation of the historic sections of the Capitol.

"What a load of crap," he'd told her, eyeing mountains of paperwork he'd been asked to go through. "Why didn't they rope Bird into this? She love history crap, and she's part of the preservation committee."

Madge almost told him that she did to, and that Birdy had undoubtedly specifically asked for him, just to annoy him. He started flipping through the document and making notes, mumbling to himself about inaccuracies on Games, though, and she kept her thoughts to herself.

"You should listen to Haymitch," Gale whispers, his lips against her scalp, warm and moist. "Four seems nice."

"It is," Madge murmurs back. "But the weather is boring."

He chuckles, deep and warm, and she smiles to herself. It's the first time she remembers hearing it since before she'd been assigned to kitchen duty in Thirteen.

"I'll keep that in mind when I plan out our vacation."

Tightening her arms around his middle, Madge takes a deep breath, inhaling detergent and heat, the strange soap they keep in the rooms that clings to his skin.

Our vacation, that sounds nice, she thinks.

He's joking, small and silly, but it's a glimmer of the boy that had sold her strawberries on her back porch a lifetime ago. Not the one that taunted her for having more than everyone else, but the one that came to her for comfort when his friend was given what amounted to a death sentence in the Quarter Quell, the one that fought to keep two families alive, the one that protected her in the woods and trusted her to help him shave. It's a hopeful sign, and she soaks it in.

"We can go to Ten, Katy-Jo Lewes wants to meet you."

"Only if you keep that witch away."

Madge laughs, burying her face in his middle. She props her chin against his chest, smiling up at him. "No guarantees."

He sighs, a weak smile twitching up at the corner of his lips.

Popping up on her toes, Madge presses a kiss to the side of his mouth.

"I'll see you soon," she whispers against his cheek before dropping back to her heels.

Giving her hands a squeeze, Gale forces his lips up, into a smile, before shifting his bag on his shoulder and walking off.

"I'll understand," he tells her, his eyes focused on the hovercraft, "if you don't come-"

"I will," she assures him. "I'll be there."

They're in this together.

He isn't irredeemable, and if it takes her a lifetime, she'll show him that.

Madge watches the hovercraft rise, hang noiselessly in the air for a moment before zooming off, vanishing in seconds over the horizon.

She stares at the empty space for a moment before taking a breath and turning, walking back across the tarmac to where her mother and Haymitch wait.

"You sure you want to follow that idiot?" He asks, eyeing the horizon disdainfully.

Her mother jabs him in the stomach with her elbow and shoots him a look, shaking her head slightly. "Oh, Haymitch, don't be mean."

Rubbing his middle, he mutters something about 'violent women' before giving Madge a soft look.

He wraps one arm around her shoulder and the other around her mother, steering them from the hanger. "I'm only joking, Pearl." A warm kiss presses to her hair. "Mostly."

Leaning into him, Madge relaxes.

Things aren't going to be easy, she knows that, but she isn't alone.

She has her mother, more well than she's ever been, Haymitch, Gale, his family, and more friends than she's ever had in her life.

After all the heartache and suffering, death and destruction, life is moving forward.

She's still the scared girl that had watched her friend be Reaped, but she's also the girl that had sounded the alarm before the Capitol had bombed her District, and the girl who had been shunted to the kitchens with her mother. She's all of them and none of them.

Everything she's been through have made her stronger, made her resilient.

She's a survivor now, not quite as broken as Gale or Katniss, but cracked and mended enough that she can empathize with them. Her loses may not seem as great, and when she looks at it critically, they aren't.

Katniss and Gale have lived lives of misery, months, even a battle torn year, of suffering doesn't compare. Especially not to Katniss', whose has been an exercise in suffering and mental anguish.

Suffering, though, she remembers, isn't a competition.

Nestling closer to Haymitch, she peers up at him through her bangs, at him smiling down at her idly chattering mother, his lumpy cap pulled low on his head.

His gray eyes cut to her and he narrows them on her. "Something the matter, Pearl."

Smiling, Madge presses her cheek to his chest. shaking her head.

She's come through this with more than she had, more than she deserves if she's being honest, and she's grateful for that. For all that she's gained, she'll spend the rest of her life trying to earn it, making amends for getting so much when people like Katniss have lost even more.

He chuckles, the noise vibrating through his chest and into her.

"Then let's get home, sweetheart."

She almost laughs. They live in a cave of a room in the former Presidential Mansion.

The thought dies though when his arm tightens around her.

"Home is where the heart is," her father had told her once. "Wherever you go, if you're with people you love, that can be home, Pearl."

Her father had been home, but now her home has grown. Haymitch is home. Her mother, Gale, his family, even Katy-Jo Lewes and Birdy, are home now. She belongs with all of them, she loves them and they love her, and wherever they are, that's home.

Madge nods, smiling up at him. "Yeah, let's go home."

#######

Days slip by as Madge waits for the okay to go to Two.

It's busy, scouting out places to build temporary shelters and consoling the people of the Capitol, having to do with the bare minimum for the first times in many of their lives.

Birdy shuttles back and forth from Four and Ten to the Capitol, trying to maintain what historical data she can.

"I'm not just saving the pretty stuff," she tells Madge, when she and Anton meet her for lunch one afternoon. "Our history isn't just going to be about the winners. I'm not rewriting things just because I can."

All the ugly things, the Games, the aftermath for the Victors, all the suffering people had endured with Snow's regime, is going to be displayed.

She also gives Madge little updates on Finnick and Annie.

"He's going to be able to walk soon," she tells her. "He and Annie are going to be allowed to go home once he can."

"We fixed up his place some," Anton tells her, grinning. "Added a nursery for the baby."

Birdy rolls her eyes, despite the smile and clear delight at the news of Annie's pregnancy. "He made a mobile out of seashells."

Finnick's story had very nearly been made into an 'inspirational spotlight' by Plutarch Heavensbee, to be shown on the now restored televisions around the country. Surviving two Games, a rebellion and an attack by mutts, then getting to live the rest of his life with his beloved Annie and their child was a story that had made the last remaining Capitol reporters salivate, eager to put one of their favorite faces on the airwaves again. Thankfully, the other Victors had unanimously vetoed that idea.

"The man's suffered enough," Haymitch had grumbled, flopping onto the couch in their room, beside Madge's mother. "He's been in the 'spotlight' for too long already. They need to let him be."

After that, Madge doesn't hear about them pestering the former Capitol heartthrob anymore.

He's going to get to have his life, with Annie, and the child she's apparently carrying, free from prying eyes and intrusive questions. At least for a little while.

Other Victors are given a bit of a reprieve, though that has less to do with mercy and more to do with the fact that none of them are particularly nice.

The ones that survived are full of anger and resentment. They have no patience for the newly restored press and their questions.

Johanna Mason, who Madge has never been personally introduced to, gets into fights almost daily, making her a topic of tabloid fodder and a source of embarrassment for the fledgling government, before she's exiled back to Seven after drunkenly announcing that there had very nearly been a final Hunger Game, one with Capitol children.

"Johanna is a very disturbed young woman," Mr. Heavensbee told the press, their electronic pads and recorders out, ready for blood. "Delusional. There was never any discussion of such a thing."

"They're lying," Madge had said, looking to Haymitch. It wasn't right. They were making Johanna Mason, who'd suffered too much already, into a mad woman. "They're building this new country on lies."

Haymitch nodded, staring at the screen and watching them drag Johanna away.

"They have to. This thing is fragile enough without adding that we're complete hypocrites to the mix."

Much as she hates it, Madge understands.

The peace that exists is young, delicate, and mentioning that the now dead Coin had attempted to exact a twisted justice on the children of the Capitol would do nothing but destabilize it.

Her only consolation is that Paylor, who'd been swiftly elected in the wake of Coin's assassination, seemed decent, fair, uncorrupted. Madge can only hope that she'll keep things from deteriorating.

They don't want to become as bad as what they're replacing.

#######

As she's helping with a children's shelter one day, she hears a familiar voice, soft and kind, coming from the corner of the activity room.

Looking over, Madge spots a figure, ash blond and hunched over a small table, coloring with a small girl.

He's speaking in low tones to her, smiling gently as he colors something with her.

The wild look, the frightening emptiness that the Capitol had carved out, is gone from his eyes, replaced with something close to his old sweetness, kind and warm as he discusses something of extreme importance with the girl.

Taking a few steps closer, Madge studies him.

He's thin still, too thin for his frame. She prefers the old Peeta, sturdy build and clumsy feet, not the spun glass he's been turned to by the Capitol and Thirteen. His wrists are still bruised, dark lacerations from restraints can still be seen. Under his eyes are dark circles, giving him a haunted, gaunt look when coupled with his almost papery white skin.

Finally, her voice fights its way out of her throat. "Peeta?"

For a second he doesn't look up, just keeps his wary eyes on the paper in front of him, coloring a bird.

Slowly, as if he's unsure he even wants to do so, he looks up.

The blue of his eyes isn't as bright as Madge remembers it, dulled by the past months, years maybe even, and there are thin pink lines criss-crossing the whites.

He looks awful, but he looks alive.

Before Madge knows what's happening, he's up, closed the few steps between them and pulled Madge into a crushing hug.

"Madge," he murmurs, holding her tight.

He smells the same as her, strange Capitol soaps and detergents dimming him, but when Madge closes her eyes she can almost catch the scent of baking bread, cinnamon and spices that still must cling to him from years in the bakery.

For several minutes, he just holds her, tears soaking into her hair, down her scalp and to the collar of her shirt.

Closing her eyes tighter, Madge imagines things being so much simpler. If Peeta had never loved Katniss, the two of them might've been okay together. Not an inferno, a deadly storm like Katniss and him, but something that could grow, survive.

As quickly as the thought form, she shakes it away.

They're both too soft, too alike. They'd never have been happy. There was not challenge with them.

Peeta's love for Katniss, while it might've started as something unhealthy, a crush that fermented and grew, expected too much from someone that didn't have it to give, not at the time anyway, had saved them. In her own way, Madge knows Katniss loves Peeta, even now, after everything that's happened. All's well might not have ended well, but then again, they'd been the star-crossed lover, hadn't they? There story was always going to be a tragedy of some kind.

As much as Madge wishes it hadn't, they'd been on this course since Peeta had announced his crush, since he'd set in motion the events that would eventually save both of them.

"I missed you," Peeta whispers.

Madge nods, squeezing him a little tighter. "Missed you too."

#######

Peeta stays in the Capitol for a few months, so they can keep a closer eye on him and monitor his progress.

"I'm not where I was," he tells Madge over lunch, dried meat and lukewarm water. "I never will be. I'm better though."

And he is.

The warm light that had burned in him isn't back, just like Gale's storm the Capitol and Thirteen have damped it permanently, but there's wisdom there. The Peeta that had existed before the torture and the highjacking is gone, but there are glimmers of him still there. What's replaced him is a man that's wiser for having suffered, kinder even.

"I'm going back to Twelve when this is over," he tells her suddenly. "After my therapy is complete."

Madge frowns, setting her water down.

"Are you sure you want to?"

He's doing well in the Capitol. No outburst, no violence. He still tells her about nightmares, waking screaming in the night, but then, so does Haymitch. Some things are irreversible.

Peeta nods. "I…" He looks down, pulling his jerky apart. "I helped create this, Madge. I helped break her, not the same as everyone else, but I did."

Madge starts to argue with him, he hadn't pushed Katniss into being a figurehead, hadn't killed her sister, hadn't done any of that, but he hold up a hand, silencing her protests.

"I'm not innocent. I know that." He sighs. "I pushed and I expected and…I'm not innocent. I'm not the only victim. I owe her this." He looks around, smiling. "Besides, I miss home. I don't belong here, and honestly, I don't want to."

Nodding, Madge takes his hand, giving it a squeeze.

He belongs with Katniss. They're kindred now. Their stars are no longer crossed, but aligned, at least enough that Peeta might be able to help her.

He's gone a few weeks later, early in the morning, before the dew has even properly settled on the gardens around the mansion, with a promise he'll keep in touch.

She can only hope he does.

#######

Eventually, Madge gets her reassignment.

"I'm going to miss you," Sorghum tells her, giving her a hug and a bright smile. "Two is gaining a gift, be sure to tell them that. And if you ever want to come back, I'll take you in heartbeat."

Nodding, Madge wipes away tears. She never thought she'd be sad to leave the Capitol, but like Birdy had told her, it has a strange sort of beauty that isn't easy to abandon.

She's going to miss her job, which has made her feel more useful than she ever has in her life. People aren't nice to her superficially, like they had been when she'd lived in Twelve, they're nice to her because they respect her. Her position isn't 'mayor's kid', her position is important. It matters, for the first time in her life.

"You're going to do well helping to restore Two," Commissioner Mills adds. "You'll do well wherever you end up."

Her confidence in Madge helps her to believe everything is going to be okay.

Haymitch simply quits his job, though Madge gets the impression that those working with him aren't all that broken up to see him go.

They take a train, one of the newly restored high speed, sleek cars. It's not quite as glamorous as the ones that took Tributes, and for that Madge is grateful. She isn't sure Haymitch is ready for that.

There are several small compartments in each car, and they take the farthest one back, just before the caboose.

They're out of the Capitol in minutes, zooming noiselessly away from the neon and the glitter, to the muted tones of a lazy spring morning in the mountains.

It reminds her of home, of Twelve, but not quite. Madge had never had much interaction with the wildlife that existed outside the fence, nor the plants and trees, and as the train slows, her eyes scan the unfamiliar blossoms, pale purple and white, baby blue and pink, that hang on the branches along the tracks. She spots a large cat, dusty brown and bored, and several birds.

No mockinjays though.

Maybe this is what life outside the fence was like, she supposes she'll never know.

Untamed trees and animals grow thinner as the train crawls into the station, finally jerking to a stop at the platform.

Outside the window all Madge can see is manicured patches of grass and stone buildings, and she sighs.

"Come on, Pearl," Haymitch tells her, pulling her bag from the overhead space and offering her a hand up.

The train is only half full, shuffling officials back and forth from Two, which had sustained minimal damage compared to other Districts and even the Capitol, then feeding them out to the other Districts that rails from the Capitol haven't been repaired for yet. It's inconvenient, but Madge supposes the strain it puts on the rail to Two is a small price for them to pay for surviving with such small loses.

The platform is crowded, and Madge stays next to Haymitch and her mother, waiting at the side of the train for it to thin out.

As it does, her heart seems to stop.

She doesn't see Gale.

For a cold moment, she thinks he might not have come.

Of course he wouldn't. He didn't want her there after all. She's fighting a battle that she's already lost.

As her chest constricts, heart aching sharply and eyes filling with tears, she takes a breath, her gaze rising to a bench a few yards off.

Gale is sitting, his elbows to his knees, head down and his hand buried in his dark hair.

Taking a breath, Madge walks toward him.

He must feel her eyes on him, because when she's a few feet off, he looks up, his eyebrows pulled together.

He looks far older than he should, the last few months hanging heavy on his shoulders and his mind. The boy that had stood on her back porch, with his scruffy stubble and dark, shaggy hair, has aged decades, adding lines to his face and a few streaks of gray to his hair.

The price of victory at any cost, physical proof of what he's gone through, what he's still going through.

Stopping, Madge searches his expression, hoping he hasn't changed his mind about letting her be near.

Finally, his lips twitch at the edges. Not a smile, but the hope of one. "You came."

Madge nods.

She almost says 'of course' because that's the first thought that comes to her mind. Of course she came, she loves him. Wherever he goes, she'll follow. No more running away.

#######

Epilogue

Years slip by, seasons melting together, and the Districts slowly rebuild themselves.

The Hawthornes move to Two, and Madge, her mother, and Haymitch slowly mix, becoming inseparable from one another. A family that can't be put asunder.

Madge helps her mother set up a candy shop. It's on a corner, an open deck and lots of light, and she hands out more free candy than she should, but she loves it. Her mind is still fragile, but she's found a purpose, and it's made her more solid.

Haymitch spends his days sitting on her mother's deck, drinking sweet tea and napping. Gale offers to buy him some geese, just to get him moving.

"Geese?" Madge asks.

"Yeah," Gale shrugs. "They're loud, obnoxious, and smelly. He should get along great with them."

Madge snorts, glad that his humor is coming back, even if it is slowly and at Haymitch's expense.

Eventually, Gale is recruited to help restore the rails, then eventually ports for the hovercrafts, connecting the Districts in ways the Capitol had never allowed. It's part of his penance, helping people come together, rather than be pulled apart and pitted against each other.

"They want me to go to the opening of the first rail stop in Eleven," he tells her, one day as they eat their lunch on the grass, outside Madge's office.

It's a daily occurrence.

Gale is like clockwork, showing up at her building, where she helps to protect the orphans of the war, everyday.

They're vulnerable. They have no one to look out for them.

She doesn't want the new government, the one she's helping to carve out, bled and lost her friends and father for, to abuse them. She doesn't want to make more Birdys and Katy-Jo Leweses.

Sometimes he brings something he picks up, a luxury he's never had before, food without hunting, working for it. That doesn't set well with him though, so most days he brings things he's prepared himself, things he's gone into the woods and caught himself, cleaned and cooked especially for her.

He never tells her why he does it, but she can guess.

Despite his aversion to it, he still gets to be part of the press junket. He's still one of the faces of the Rebellion, even if he hates it. When he's at work he's under constant scrutiny from his coworkers, most of which are from Two. People he'd helped break down during the war.

"They hate me," he told her the first time Madge had come to his office to visit him. "I'm still the enemy."

Gale, who'd never been anyone, at least not in his mind, had been elevated to the limelight, and he was learning it wasn't always so glamorous. All your mistakes, all you faults-real and imagined-are on display, and you're judged for it all. Whether you deserve it or not.

Coming to Madge's office is a small escape. Her coworkers respect her enough to let her be, even with her famous friend.

Nodding, Madge chews thoughtfully on a strawberry.

"They said I could bring someone," he begins, his eyes focused on the paper in his fingers, the wrapper from some cheese. He glances up. "It's on a weekend."

For a second, Madge isn't sure why he's telling her this, he hasn't got any plants or pets she'd need to watch. Then it hits her.

Her cheeks warm and she drops her eyes to her hands, focusing on the juice stains on her fingers.

Heart thrumming loudly in her chest, if he can't hear it his ears aren't as sharp as he's always claiming, she looks up.

"Are you asking me to go with you?" She frowns. "As a date?"

For several seconds he's silent, his eyes down and his mouth narrow, uncertain.

It's been months, maybe longer, she isn't sure, since he'd kissed her, since he'd implied he'd let her hold him to his promise, that they could explore this strangeness between them. She'd almost lost hope that he'd ever revisit it.

"You should ask him out," her mother had said, her attention focused on her fudge. "Boys can be dense sometimes."

Madge had laughed, brushed her off.

Gale needed time and space. If something was going to come of the electricity between them it would grow in its own time. It couldn't be forced.

Eyes flickering up, Gale's lips twitch up. "We've been on dates, Madge." He cuts his eyes to the food around them. "What do you think this is?"

Biting her lip, Madge tries not to laugh at him.

He's come by her house, the one she shares with her mother and Haymitch, taken her to family dinners, but those weren't dates. Even their lunches weren't alone, not with her coworkers probably watching from the windows and the clock ticking her short lunch hour away. There was always the buffer of her family or his, a clock taking their time, a careful separation that kept anything from ever coming of their time together.

"This isn't a date, Gale. You never ask me if I wanted lunch, you just show up."

Scowling, he relaxes into the tree behind him. "You could've told me to stop coming."

"And offend a General?" Madge shakes her head, smiling in mock concern. "I know better."

His eyes roll and huffs. "Fine. Yeah, then I guess I'm asking you to be my date."

Despite the fact that he's acting surly, almost pouting about her ribbing, Madge can sense the unease in him. Somehow, there's still a sliver of doubt in him about her answer.

Everything that's happened has damaged his confidence, made him unsure of himself, and part of Madge's heart cracks at that. He never asked, because he was scared of the answer.

He's been suffering through galas alone, all because he was afraid of being rejected.

He can't see that she loves him. She's been giving him space, letting him make the moves, but her mother was right, boys can be dense.

Setting up on her knees, Madge crawls over the basket of strawberries, over Gale's long legs, stretched out over the grass, until she's beside him.

His body tenses as she leans into him, and he turns his face, glaring out at the sun warmed patch of grass outside the tree's shade.

"Gale," she whispers, her fingers reaching up, tips prickling over the creeping stubble on his jaw, gently tilting his face back towards her. "Yes, Gale, I will go with you."

A little smile flicks at the edges of his lips and Madge can't help herself, he leans in, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

It must be enough for him, all the encouragement he needs, because suddenly Gale's body is pressing to her, pinning her to the soft grass under him.

Weaving her fingers into his hair, Madge closes her eyes as the rough skin of his face grazes over her neck and shoulders, kissing her again and again before returning to her lips.

The hesitance is gone, replaced with fearful eagerness, as if he expects her to push him away at any moment.

Instead she wraps her arms around his neck, letting one hand press against his back, feeling the ridges of his scars under her fingertips.

She isn't letting him go, not again.

#######

Gale never stops blaming himself. The ghosts of those he killed, of the lives he ruined, will haunt him until his dying days. He wakes up some nights, drenched in a cold sweat, bolt up-right in the bed, sobbing, apologizing. It gets better at times, less frequent, but then someone will mention his part in the design for the bomb, the ingeniousness, the flawlessness of it, and it all crashes back down on him.

He vanishes into the mountains for days sometimes, after particularly bad rounds. Madge never stops him, not even after they get married.

Loving someone, she realizes, isn't about holding on or letting go, fighting or not, it's about doing all those things. It's about realizing when to do those things.

Sometimes Gale needs to be alone, and sometimes he needs her to hold him. She learns to do both.

"You should come with me," he tells her. "You need to learn fish or trap, just in case."

In case the government he's helped create, the one that killed Prim and drove Katniss away, turned him into a killer, fails.

He loves her and he wants to protect her from his failures, even the ones that haven't happened yet.

Reluctantly, Madge lets him take her out, teach her skills that saved him after his father died, skills he hopes will save her if what he's helped to create collapses at their feet.

When she finds out she's pregnant the first time, a happy accident for Madge but a source of panic for Gale, he leaves for a week, into the green mountains, which makes Haymitch furious.

"Little bastard," he growls. "You don't need him. Just come back and live with me and your momma-"

"Haymitch," Madge cuts him off. "He'll be back. I promise."

And he does. He loves her. He isn't going to leave her, no matter how scared he is.

"I don't deserve this," he tells her. "I don't deserve happiness."

Madge just kisses his cheek. Telling him different won't change his mind.

He deserves all the happiness in the world. His life had been an exercise in suffering, compounded by the unscrupulous whose only desire was to grab power for themselves with no concern for the lives they destroyed along the way.

Glen comes, then Savanna, both as dark headed as Gale, with a love for the woods and animals and making messes. They go with Gale on long camping trips and he teaches them to fish, set snares, and eventually use a bow. They're much better at it than Madge, a source of pride to them both.

They learn about the war through Gale's nightmares, despite his and Madge's best efforts to keep them from them.

Daddy wakes up crying sometimes. Daddy's back is a lacework of scars. Daddy did bad things during the war.

These are truths to their children, but they don't make them love him any less. These truths don't make him any less worthy of their love.

Slowly, Madge sees the life come back into Gale's eyes. The storm that had lived in them when they'd been young, a buyer and seller of illegal goods on her back porch, two kids pinned down in roles they never asked to be cast in, never returns, but something better lights them.

Just like Peeta, it's gentler, less volatile, doesn't threaten to sweep them all away in its fury.

He's learned what harm he can cause, and never wants to again.

Madge has learned she's more than just the mayor's daughter, even if that title had shaped her entire life.

She's still that, but she's so much more now.

She isn't the girl that had overpaid for strawberries, she isn't the girl that ran away to let Gale be with Katniss, she isn't the girl that sat in on meetings between the leaders of the Rebellion while Haymitch was too ill to attend, but she is. She always will be.

All the things she's become, a wife, a mother, a sister, someone who fights for the rights of those without a voice, are because of the things she's been. The things she still is, even if only in pieces.

"Finnick thinks it takes longer to put yourself together than it does to fall apart," Annie tells her, one summer when they visit Four, to meet she and Finnick's son, Reed. "And he's right, but he doesn't always remember that sometimes putting yourself back together makes you stronger. It has to, only the strong can do it."

Scars are tissue too, and everyone that fought is made of them, even if all of them aren't on the outside.

Madge is stronger for having been pulled to pieces, glued and knitted back together with hope and effort.

Gale is stronger too.

Maybe in another life, they wouldn't have ended up together, but in this life they did. They need each other, they're stronger together.

Closing her eyes, Madge lets her head rest against Gale's shoulder as the children run around in the garden that's been created on the front lawn of the former Presidential Mansion.

It's full of the never fading flowers Madge remembers from her time staying on the grounds.

White lilacs fill the air with a sweet scent. Lilies, daises, rosemary, and rue, are scattered around, shaded under dozens of different trees brought in from each district.

"It's nice," he says softly. "They did a good job."

Eyes opening a fraction, Madge watches Glen take Savanna's hand and pull her towards a wishing well at the center of the garden.

Smiling, Madge nods. "Yeah, they did."

Gale stiffens as the children reach the well, Glen's little fingers tracing over names on a plaque, reading them off to his sister, their faces solemn.

They're walking on the ash and bone of children, innocents killed by a design born of their father's lifetime of suffering. They know that, they've spent the entirety of their short lives knowing the burden Gale carries. They're learning their history, just as Madge did when she was little, in the hopes that more memorials won't be necessary.

No more Games. No more Victors. No more wars.

It's a sign of healing, a mix of the Capitol and the Districts. Shared suffering, shared loses.

The garden is a scar where the war had torn the nation apart. Like Madge and Gale, it's been pieced back together so well that from the outside the wound can't be seen.

It's a peaceful, gentle way to remember the sacrifices made during a terrible war.

That's okay though, there are worse ways to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, it's over. Hope everyone liked the ending, I tried. I tried so hard. I'm eventually going to write a few scenes with Gale that people have asked about, like what happened in the Hawthorne compartment after Madge and her mom left way back in the early chapters, Gale getting a talking to by his mom and probably Haymitch after Madge left, and Gale's conversation with Birdy that Madge missed, but I don't know when I'll get to them. They'll basically be a bonus chapter to this story. Anyways, again, thanks for reading and sticking with this mess, it hasn't been pretty, but we made it. I appreciate you all more than you'll ever know.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> Here it is, the bonus chapter I've been working on forever. It changed from how I originally planned it, but I'm okay with it. Hopefully y'all are too.

Gale stops at the window and stares out, his head throbbing.

He's got to leave, go back to Two. He's no good, everything he touches dies. He's poison and he needs to stay away from Madge.

The snow outside swirls, and his mind drifts to Twelve.

He should've known back then that he was dangerous. After the whipping he'd drug his family down, put his mother out of work for ages and gotten his brothers ostracized by their friends. Even though he'd only been trying to survive, his good intentions had hurt four of the people he loved most in the world.

Now his good intentions, his attempts to put an end to the war early and save everyone, had ended in disaster.

It isn't just that Prim is dead, though her death hurts the most. Her death is what has driven the final nail in the coffin of his and Katniss' friendship. She didn't deserve to die, and he'd caused it with his anger and his shortsightedness.

All those kids' deaths hurt though. He loves kids, and never, not even on his worst days, would he have imagined himself as a mass murderer, which is exactly what he feels like. Which is exactly what he is.

They might've been Capitol children, but they were still just children.

Children he'd killed. Children he'd murdered.

"If you're gonna jump, go to the south window and aim for the rose bushes," an irritating voice tells him. "It'll make for a much more photogenic police report. Plus, it's poetic."

Scowling, Gale glances down to the window ledge.

Sitting cross-legged on the inside ledge, back against the wall and head propped against the glass, is Alameda.

She's much more normal looking than Gale's ever seen her. With her dirty clothes and sun-stained skin, greasy hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, she could've been anyone. He might not even recognize her if not for her wicked grin glowing up at him in the moonlight.

Huffing, Gale turns his gaze back outside. If he ignores her maybe she'll vanish back into whatever dimension of hell she crawled out of.

"What's your problem, Dorothy?" She asks. "Upset you won't get to bone your cousin?"

"She isn't my cousin!" Gale snaps despite his attempts to ignore her.

Grinning, Alameda shrugs. "If you say so."

He shouldn't have to say so, it's a fact, but he's too exhausted to argue against her madness.

Turning, he starts to leave, but stops when he hears her laugh.

"You're too serious, you know that right?"

Glaring back at her, he tries to bite his tongue, anything he says she'll twist, but he can't stop himself. "You don't take anything seriously enough."

"Oh, poor you, mistreated little thing. Stop throwing yourself a pity party."

Gale grinds his teeth. "I'm not-"

"Yes you are," she cuts him off. "You think you're the only person that's screwed up and gotten people killed?"

He knows he isn't, but that doesn't make him feel any better. No matter what anyone says, his guilt isn't going to melt away just because he isn't the only killer in the world.

She smiles, a tiny bit sadly if he's being honest, and sits up a little more.

"Do you know how many people I've gotten killed?"

Gale stares at her, dumbfounded, for a minute before his mind catches up to her question. "What?"

Her lips twitch, and she turns her eyes back out the window, toward the falling snow. "I've killed more people than I can count. I can't even remember how many I've killed or gotten killed."

Shaking his head, Gale frowns. "That doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything to me."

The deaths on her conscience and how she copes with them is her problem.

She huffs and rolls her eyes. "What it means is that no matter how absolutely awful you think you are, I'm worse."

While Gale would like to say there's no argument there from him, that isn't true. She'd been a Victor. Her choices, like Finnick's and Haymitch's and all the others' weren't hers. All those lives, all that blood, are on Snow's hands, not hers.

"It was my bomb, you know that," Gale almost whispers, his words heavy in his mouth. "I was mad and I made that thing. I killed all those kids. No one made me do it."

He'd done it happily, with a sick sense of purpose.

Even if he hadn't had any say in its use, he'd created it knowing full well it might be used some day.

"You're right," she chirps. "You, Gale Hawthorne, are a top notch asshole." Her eyes narrow, glittering in the moonlight. "You screwed up. Make amends."

"I'm trying!" He snarls. "That's why I'm in Two-"

"You're in Two because you're a dirty coward," she snaps. "You're running away from everyone that loves you and having a pity party for yourself. Probably have gray streamers up in your room and a pet spider."

Gale's fists clench. "I'm staying away for their own good. I'll just do something stupid and hurt them."

"Probably," she agrees with a nod. "Guess what though? That's just being human. Even assholes have people who love them."

"I don't deserve their love," Gale mutters, rubbing his hand over his face. Not from his family, not from his friends, not from Madge.

She's curled up on a bench right now, sleeping, looking peaceful and content, and Gale can't ruin that. She's innocent, and he has no place around anyone like that.

Something hits his shin, quick and hard, and he grimaces as he looks down to find Alameda's foot pulling back from his leg.

"What was that for?" He mutters, dropping down to rub his shin.

"I'm too lazy to get up and slap some sense into you," she says simply. Settling back, she pulls her coat a little closer around her shoulders before looking at him. "Look, Dorothy, if you want to say you don't think you deserve forgiveness, I won't argue with you about that. You're as guilty as I am, as guilty as Beetee and Coin and Heavensbee, but being here, being around some of the most awful people imaginable, has taught me that everyone deserves to be loved. Even Snow had people who loved him, and he's as close to the devil as anyone can get."

Glaring at her, Gale pushes himself back up and pops his back, straightening up and staring out at the swirling snow. "Snow didn't care that he was a monster."

"No, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, but here's the thing, people are more than just their worst mistake." She lets her head rest against the window again as she peers up at him. "Part of you is a monster, part of you is a brother and a son, part of you is an ex-best friend, and part of you is someone that Madge loves."

Gale stares down at her for a moment, waiting for her to make her jab, tell him something cruel but accurate, but it doesn't come.

Sighing, he rubs the back of his neck. His family will seek him out, he can't avoid them forever. There's no protecting them fully from him, but Madge is different. Haymitch, for the first time in his miserable life, might just be useful. He'll warn Madge off against him, and if Gale has any luck left, he'll keep her away from him.

Finally, the silence stretches too thin and Gale finally breaks it.

"I don't deserve Madge."

"No argument here," she snorts.

"Thanks," Gale mutters, rubbing his hand over his face.

What did he expect?

Pushing herself up, Alameda stands, stretching and pulling her coat closer again.

"This isn't about what you deserve." She stands next to him, staring out the window. "People like you and me, we may never get to be happy, and if we do, we sure as hell don't deserve to be, but because of what we've done we need to create as much as we can. Not destroy it."

She turns to him, her face shadowed and soft. "Madge doesn't deserve to feel rejected just because you're a miserable shit. If things are meant to fall apart, then they will, but let her have her chance. You've caused enough sadness, don't cause more."

"What if that's what I do anyway? What if I hurt her?"

Because from where he stands, that's all he has to offer. Hurt and heartache, and he doesn't think he can stand to do that to her.

"Don't make her decisions for her," she answers, her eyes focused on the city lights, just visible over the wall surrounding the mansion. "We have to let the people we love make their own mistakes. We can't protect them from everything."

Gale lets out a long breath. "I wish we could."

He wishes he could protect Posy, Vick, and even Rory, from the realities of life, all the cold hard facts he'd had to learn too early. He can't though, not anymore than he can keep from breaking Madge's heart, sooner or later.

"Do you love her?"

Gale keeps his eyes on the window, following down a flurry until it vanishes into the darkness below.

He can't answer her. Not because he doesn't know, but because he's afraid of it.

Everything he loves he breaks. Katniss, Prim, his family-they're hurt and confused by his sudden need to ignore them-and he needs to save at least one person.

Madge is his only hope to do something right for a change.

She must take his stony silence as an answer, because she looks up at him, her expression unreadable.

"Loving people can sometimes mean letting them go," she says softly, almost talking to herself. "Sometimes it can be letting them fight for you, and sometimes it can mean fighting your demons for them."

Gale frowns. "How are you supposed to know which one you need to do?"

Her nose wrinkles up and she glances up at him, her smile soft. "You don't. You just guess, and hope that if you're wrong you realize it before the other person wises up."

She gives him a gentle shove, then a small smile, before turning and starting to walk off.

Gale frowns at her back before he calls after her.

"Why are you being…not awful?"

Her lips, strange and natural, twitch up. "Madge is my friend. I want her to be happy, and even if I think you're going to be a monumental waste of her time, she deserves to make her own choices. I want her to make her own mistakes and learn. She deserves that much."

There's an implied, even if you're an asshole, but Gale decides to ignore that.

She gives him one last slight smile, then turns and vanishes down the dark hall, leaving Gale to his muddled thoughts.

A few minutes pass as he watches the snow drift lazily down to the ground, slowly covering every inch of it with white.

It looks so pure, pristine, that Gale wonders if the front lawn, where they've finally managed to remove all the bodies, is as peaceful. He doubts that. No amount of snow can hide the blood he spilt.

Something brushes his shoulder, just enough to get his attention, and he glares over his shoulder at the source, certain it's Alameda again.

It isn't though.

His expression softens when he sees who is actually interrupting his solitude.

"Madge?"

She looks tense, uneasy, maybe to be around him or maybe just in general, he can't be sure. Either way, he feels he's to blame. The new world they're in isn't much better than the one they were trying to escape, and he's the reason for that.

"I woke up and you were gone." She chews her lip. "I was worried."

He gives her a forced smile. "I can take care of myself."

"I know-I just-that doesn't mean I can't worry," she mutters, her fingers lacing together in front of her and her eyes dropping.

Gale frowns down at her. "I don't want you to worry about me."

He doesn't want her to have to think about him at all. He's the monster lurking under the bed, the thing parents will warn their children about before they go to sleep. He's a killer. She shouldn't waste a moment on him.

"That isn't something you can control," she murmurs, stepping forward and letting her eyes rise. "Whether you're here or in Two, I'm going to worry."

Her eyes fix on the snow dancing over his shoulder, and he almost laughs. She's worried about him, but she can't even look him in the eye, and he knows why.

Madge has spent her whole life around people from the Capitol, monsters and demons that destroy everything they come into contact with. She knows what he is, even if she won't say it.

She loves him, he's known that for a while now, and he doesn't know why. Until Katniss' Reaping he'd never really shown her much kindness, and even after it, he'd only used her. She'd been a means to an end, a source of knowledge, and once things seemed like they'd go back to normal, he'd abandoned her.

Even during the time when Katniss had been training for the Quell, he hadn't spared her much thought. She always made sure he was safe, did what she could to make his life and his siblings' lives easier, and he'd treated her like an afterthought.

She'd been unattainable, beautiful and perfect and out of his reach, and he'd reminded himself of that over and over again. That Madge, no matter how kind she'd been, had to stay a passing thought. It would only hurt them both to pretend there was any future there.

When they'd been in the woods, he'd seen how strong she was, how determined she was to do the right thing, no matter the consequences to herself, he'd let himself imagine a different life.

They weren't in Twelve anymore, all the rules that had tied them down were gone. Katniss and Mellark, the Seam and the Town, it was all gone, and it was a tragedy, but it was also a liberation.

Out in the woods they could be anyone, and for those few days, he'd hoped they could.

All of Panem could burn for all he cared. He was free.

He had his family, and Katniss had been gone the moment she'd been Reaped, he should've known that the whole time, so what did he care about the rest?

Maybe they could survive in the woods, hunting and fishing, foraging for food, moving along until they were outside the Capitol's watchful eye. It had seemed so real.

The girl that had been beyond his reach was suddenly at his side, with his family, part of his life, day in and out. She wanted to be with him, he knew that, and he wanted her. They had a chance at a life together.

Then the hovercrafts had come and he'd known immediately that had never been a possibility.

He had always wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself, save people, be a hero, and he was finally handed the opportunity, had it practically gift wrapped for him.

Everything comes at a price though, that's something he'd learned in the Seam at a young age, and the price of being a hero had been Madge.

She was a distraction, and not one he could afford. Panem needed him, Thirteen needed him, Katniss needed him, and he couldn't let them down. Madge could take care of herself, he'd seen her do it her whole life, but Katniss needed him. They were partners, right to the end. She couldn't do what was being asked of her without him.

Looking back, he sees he was avoiding a bigger issue.

Katniss had been his future, or at least he'd thought she was, for so long that when things fell so perfectly together he hadn't tried to shake it off. Things were as they should be, and there was no place for Madge in that.

Still, she'd kept showing up, and he couldn't deny that he missed having her around.

Rory and Vick had dragged her and her mother to their little compartment one night and given Gale deadly glares when he'd come home and they'd rushed off.

"You ruined our night," Rory complained, gathering up cards and muttering darkly to himself. "Of all the nights for you to come back early."

"Sorry for spoiling your date," Gale grumbled.

"Shouldn't you be out sucking face with our cousin?" Rory snapped, tossing the deck under the couch. "Making little deformed babies with her in the closet?"

Vick had shrunk back, wide eyes flickering back and forth between his brothers as he'd backed away, clearly expecting a fight.

"She isn't our cousin."

"Yeah, I heard, now she's your lover." Rory rolled his eyes. "She gets around as much as you do. Mellark hasn't even been dead that long and she's already shacking up with the next warm body."

"You know that's all bullshit-"

"Do I?" Rory snapped. "You're never around anymore and when you are you're not really here. You probably are doing the nasty with her, you've been wanting to for years. Maybe you should just drop the act and move in with the Everdeens. That'd give everyone a little soap opera moment to gossip about."

That had been the closest Gale's ever come to hitting one of his siblings.

"Katniss and I are friends," Gale had ground out.

"Yeah, some friend you've been. I heard what Birdy said, you told Katniss you loved her. This is probably all your fault, you know? You couldn't keep your dick in your pants and it got our whole district destroyed!"

Rory had stormed off after that, leaving Gale and a somber faced Vick standing in silence.

"I don't think it's your fault," Vick finally whispered, taking a timid step toward Gale. "Rory doesn't either. He's just mad."

Gale had nodded, given Vick a hug and sent him to bed.

It had been sweet of him to try to ease Gale's conscience, but the reality of it was that Gale thought Rory might've had a point.

He'd pushed Katniss, he'd tried to put things back the way they were, and he gave Snow one more weapon to use against her.

Just like with the bomb, Gale had felt justified. He hadn't thought his actions through, and he'd gotten a lot of people killed.

Despite that, he hadn't learned his lesson, that he was a dangerous animal that had no place making plans or being in control. He isn't going to make that same mistake again.

"I might never get over this, Madge," his voice almost breaks, "I don't want you dragged down."

Because that's what he does. He takes good people and he breaks them, drags them into the darkness and squashes their light, and he won't do that to her.

Before he can stop it, his hand reaches out and cups her cheek, his thumb brushing over her lips.

She's soft and delicate, two things Gale's never had in his life, never had under his fingertips, and the thought of losing her tears him up. The thought of ruining her, though, makes losing her seem preferable. The only safe place to be is away from him.

"Whether you're here or in Two, whether I'm with you or not, I'm going to worry, Gale," she whispers. "Not being near will only make it worse."

He almost laughs. It might feel worse initially, but in the end, she'll be alive, untainted, and that's worth a temporary heartache.

"I don't like-I'm used to being the rescuer, not the bad guy. When my dad died, when my family needed me, when Katniss' family needed me, I saved them. I was the good guy...and now I've destroyed my best friend."

Wholly and irreparably, and if he could do that to his oldest friend, a girl he thought he had a future with, what will he do to Madge? He can't let himself destroy her too. He won't.

She looks up at him, her eyes glowing in the moonlight, soft and hopeful, as she reaches out and lets her fingers trace along his jaw as her eyebrows pull together.

Gale can see her mind whirling, trying to think up something to comfort him, but her lips stay solidly together. Maybe there's nothing to say.

"You can be the good guy again. Maybe just, start small."

There's so much certainty in her voice, in what she's saying, as if she believes he really has a chance at redemption that he can't help but want to believe her.

He shouldn't. Time and trial have shown he isn't someone to be trusted with fragile things like life and hope, doing the right thing, but he wants a second chance more than anything.

Madge has spent her whole life dealing with monsters, and if she can see some good still in him, then maybe it's there.

His eyes drop, down to her bare feet, toes wiggling against the cold tile.

"Why don't you have any shoes on?" He asks, barely keeping the sigh from clawing its way out of him. Does she want to catch a cold?

Her only response is a shrug.

While she's formulating an excuse, which he's sure will be a real stunner, he swoops down and scoops her up, causing her to squeal.

"Gale, what are you doing?" Her voice barely able to stay level and low.

He considers his answer as he shuffles her in his arms, securing her against his chest before he smiles weakly. "Starting small?"

Because maybe she's right and there's still some good in him. If she can see it, then it must be there.

Besides, Alameda might have a point too.

It isn't just about what he deserves, it's about what Madge wants. He'd ignored what Katniss had wanted and needed, and look how that had turned out. He won't make that mistake with Madge. This is her life, and she gets to make the decisions about what's best for her, regardless of what Gale thinks.

Especially, maybe, if he thinks it's a mistake.

"You aren't going to run away again?"

He considers telling her it isn't running away, it's taking responsibility, but he bites that thought back.

"I'm going back to Two. I have to, do you understand?"

A small, hopeless part of him hopes she pushes him away, tells him he's a coward and walk away from him. It would be for the best.

Instead, she pulls closer, her lips grazing his ear. "I'm coming with you, understand?"

When she pulls back, Gale swallows thickly.

"You're making a mistake," he insists, making one last attempt to convince her of the trouble she's attempting to undertake. There isn't much conviction in his voice though. His weak will has already won out, letting him make another gamble with an innocent life.

She turns his face to hers, locking her eyes with his before pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

That seals the deal.

Of all the things he regrets, kissing her isn't one of them. Not when he'd been walking her back to her compartment after she'd tried to talk to Mellark in Thirteen, not before she'd left for Ten, and not now.

Kissing her is one of the few things that he's done that he's certain about.

With Katniss there'd been a hesitation. She didn't know what she wanted and he wasn't sure what he expected.

With Madge though...

There was never any hesitation with Madge. She wanted to kiss him, wanted him to kiss her, and there were no questions. It was simple, the way kissing should be, even if he tried his best to make it complicated.

Madge knew what she wanted, and she wanted him. Even if he was stupid and confused, still uncertain what he wanted, Madge knew. She's steady in a world that has become anything but, and he needs her.

He might be poison, he's certain he is, but maybe Madge is his opposite. Maybe she can keep him from bringing down destruction on everything he touches.

Maybe not, but he can't convince himself not to let her try.

"It's not, but if it were, it's mine to make."

Because she loves him, because he loves her, and, at least for the moment, that's all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> So just to clear up any confusion, this story basically picks up at an alternate ending to another of my stories that I just haven't posted here yet. Hope it's not too confusing.


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